A Sense of Urgency to Produce Real Change
Written by John Seelke
A couple of months ago, The Washington Post announced that Argelia Rodriguez, the chief of a local Washington DC non-profit focused on providing more students access to college, the District of Columbia College Access Program (DC-CAP), was stepping down.
Through my time as a teacher at McKinley Technology High School, I was familiar with the work of DC-CAP. Many of my former students had engaged with local DC-CAP Counselors, who in addition to their regular guidance counselors, helped students consider scholarship opportunities. The article cited some of the initiatives that Rodriguez started through DC-CAP, including an arts program, whose main showcase was held at the Kennedy Center; and a STEM-Ready after-school program that was to improve achievement in math and science.
The Ten-Word Response
There is no doubt that Rodriguez and DC-CAP had a positive influence on the lives of many students within the District of Columbia Public Schools. That cannot be denied. However, what struck me was the first quote from Rodriguez about the efforts of her program:
“We’ve been able to break the cycle of poverty that comes from undereducation, because we know these kids will go to college.”
If you take the first part of the statement, make the conjunction We’ve into we have and stop at the word poverty, you would get to ten words. The ten-word response reminded me of one of my favorite clips of The West Wing:
The episode is a presidential debate, and prior to the main event, the staff of the incumbent, President Jeb Barlett, was seen trying to find the right 10-word answer that could be given in the debate. They were looking for the soundbite that voters would remember. Later in the episode, Bartlett’s opponent gives a ten-word response. Bartlett’s comeback to his opponents ten-word answer: “Here’s my question: What are the next 10 words of your answer” Bartlett later notes that most decisions in leading the United States are quite complex and nuanced, and they can’t be solved with just ten words.
The same can be said with education reform. As I stated earlier, I know plenty of students who benefited from DC-CAP; however, I also know that the program did not break the cycle of poverty. How do I know that? Because I still keep in touch with many of my former students, many of whom did begin college, but for various reasons, were unable to finish their degrees.
Some of these students are struggling financially, living paycheck to paycheck. Others are working 60 hour a week jobs as government contractors just to make ends meet. Many students are working extra hard to pay off student loans that unfortunately did not end up with a degree. In some cases, the debt prevents those students from even gaining access to their transcript if and when they decided they wanted to return to college and either finish a degree or use some of the credits they earned towards a new degree.
Finding The Magic Bullet
Education is an arena where everyone wants to find the right answer, when in reality it’s way too complex for just one answer (even if that answer was more than 10 words). Think back to the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, more commonly known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). That law was a bipartisan effort to address inequality in education, and proclaimed by 2020 that 100% of children in the United States would be proficient in reading and in mathematics. Such a statement is the type of 10-word answer that could be proclaimed on a debate stage or in a national speech such as the State of the Union.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a similar sense of urgency, this time related to learning loss, or unfinished learning. District, state, and federal leaders are turning to everywhere and everyone for solutions to the obvious challenges most students faced over the past 18 months.
A tweet I recently read referred to this article from the Los Angeles Times spoke of that same sense of urgency. What is telling is that these types of stories are appearing in the media, where during the pre-pandemic times, there were plenty of students who faced a similar sense of urgency. Perhaps it was because most of those students were Black, or Latino, or lived in rural parts of the country that outlets such as the Los Angeles Times did not write about the same sense of urgency then.
The challenge for policy makers is they must move fast, but at the same time realize that the choices that are made will not be enough to be the solution. The phrase “magic bullet” is often used in education. Larry Cuban wrote that the phrase isn’t unique to education. And ironically, one may hear a policy maker make the claim “There are no magic bullets in education” only to follow up that claim with a 10-word answer about what needs to be done to solve the education crisis. What may be as worse as the 10-word answer is the consistent comparison to other districts, states, or even countries on how one should create an education platform.
One of the unique aspects of Teaching Lab is that it understands that producing real change in education involves more than just a 10-word answer. Their model of Head, Hearts and Habits demonstrates that multiple components are needed to infuse meaningful reforms. Further, Teaching Lab ideally invests multiple years and multiple sessions with a district or school system -- no short quick fixes such as one workshop or even one curricular choice will solve any education crisis.
John Seelke is currently an Instructional Specialist in Secondary Mathematics in Montgomery County, MD. Over his 20 year career in education, John has taught at the K-12 level, at the university level and has worked in two district offices. In 2007, he was honored with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching (PAEMST), representing Washington, D.C.
