For around a decade, Lee High School was a school centered on the philosophy that all children had a right to a public education, even at the cost of the school being deemed "unacceptable" under No Child Left Behind. Students who were turned away by "better" public schools in the Houston area for fear that graduation, attendance, and standardized tests numbers would be damaged by them were accepted to Lee without question and embraced by staff and administration. It was a matter of equality to our former principal, Steve Amstutz, and he recruited a wide variety of truly excellent teachers on the fundamental moral vision of his campus.
To be a teacher at Lee was never easy. Lee serves the diverse Gulfton neighborhood of Houston, where refugees from war-torn countries are resettled. Over 40 languages are spoken at Lee, and Lee has the highest percentage of ELLs (English language learners) of almost any school in the country. No matter how little formal education a student had upon arrival in the US, under NCLB, Lee was still held accountable for students' scores on the TAKS, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.
Nevertheless, over the years, Lee accumulated an astounding faculty, includingnationally recognized teachers, who believed in the potential of every student and who worked tirelessly and joyfully on their behalf.
The work of the Lee faculty paid off. TAKS test scores rose steadily. The number of
