Who is making excuses for what?
This past Sunday, May 20, I appeared as a panelist on the NBC special "Education Nation" Teacher Town Hall to discuss poverty in education and closing the achievement gap. Sitting to my right was the current Florida Teacher of the Year, Alvin Davis. He was eager to espouse the familiar Michelle Rhee-cum-Teach-for-America talking points: "If there's a great leader in the building and a great teacher in the classroom, those two things align, and there is nothing we cannot overcome. It doesn't matter. (...) Poverty, homeless, doesn't matter, that kid is going to succeed."
At the risk of sounding pessimistic, I made it my duty to bring the conversation back around each time to the dire circumstances facing so far too many children in our classrooms. "I do not feel teachers are failing students, I feel American society is failing children," I said. I went on to touch on the 24% child poverty rate in this country, the lack of access to health care and affordable housing, the high