Sunday, October 21, 2012

Back from the Classroom

Dear Reader(s?),

It is with great pleasure, and absolutely no fanfare, that I resurrect my 5 years dead blog.

Where have I been these years?  In the classroom.

After 1 more year in policy I became a teacher at KIPP in Washington, DC, teaching mainly 8th grade math for 3 years.  After that I spent a year teaching at another charter school, Harlem Village Academies, in Harlem NYC.  If any of you remember my post arguing with NYC Educator, I decided to put my money where my mouth was, and went off to see if KIPP was all it was cracked up to be, both as a workplace and as an institution of learning.  In future posts, I think I will have a lot more to say about my experience as a teacher in charters schools, but in short I still think KIPP (and the world of nearly identical No-Excuses charters) is an AMAZING educational institution for students, but I am not nearly so sold on it as a workplace that meets the needs of employees.  Nonetheless, I in no way regret my experience, and am tremendously proud of the work I did there, the kids who worked their butts off, and the amazing team I worked with.

One thing I will be proud of for the rest of my life: in 2011, my majority low-income, 99% African American students in southeast Washington, DC blew the DC-CAS out of the water and broke the KIPP DC and Washington DC records for 8th grade math test scores. 100% of my kids scores proficient or above and of that 62% scored advanced.*   Boo yah!

But despite these and other successes, I've decided to leave the classroom, perhaps for good.  More on that later.  For now I'll just say that it's good to be back in DC and back writing about ed reform. My hope is that from here going forward I'll be able to blow a lot less hot-air, and speak with the wisdom of real experience.  As it is, I don't suppose many bloggers have been both successful classroom teachers and full time policy wonks, so hopefully that will bring unique perspective to my blog.

Best wishes to you and looking forward to future conversations.




*For reasons of privacy I won't link to the actual school report card, but if you are really curious to verify this claim, send me a message and I will tell you the identifying information, so you can look it up yourself.