The late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone once said, "we all do better when we all do better." Growing up in a good liberal Minnesota family, Paul Wellstone was one of my heroes. Yes, quite nerdy, but I was reading his book, Conscious of a Liberal, and listening intently to the liberal chatter between my mom and grandpa with a great deal of interest from a very young age. Nothing wrong with that, right?
I have found myself thinking about this favorite Paul Wellstone quote often recently, particularly on Tuesday night as my wonderful policy fellowship met for our monthly session. Per usual, many topics were covered and we heard from wonderful presenters on a variety of topics. My head spun again with ideas and concerns about education as we talked about teaching as a performance vs seniority driven profession, peer evaluation, and teacher preparation. As with every meeting, I love the perspective that my fellow teachers have on every topic. It is a group of passionate, intelligent individuals who believe change is possible. It's a beautiful thing.
This month's session blends together in my mind with a very quick trip I took to Washington DC with the same policy fellowship this past Saturday. The trip was to attend a training through EQuIP (Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products) and learn about a qualitative rubric to evaluate common core materials. The training was thoughtful and well organized and I benefited greatly from being there.
Teach Plus flew about 15 other policy fellows from around the country to be a part of the training as well. It was both inspiring and humbling to sit in a room with a group of teachers who are truly fighting every day to close the achievement gap all over the country. I heard stories from a brilliant teacher from Los Angeles who told me 80% of her students are undocumented making basic safety a major factor in her classroom. Other stories from a teacher in Memphis who told me that the children in his school are in the bottom 2% of achievement in the country and how the impact that can have on moral among staff and students is beyond words, and the stories went on. I listened and shared and soaked up all of their hope. Because what was impactful was not the weight of their realities, we know similar challenges in CPS, but that all of these teachers are hopeful and are fighting every day to do better for themselves, their students and communities, and this country.
Teach Plus flew about 15 other policy fellows from around the country to be a part of the training as well. It was both inspiring and humbling to sit in a room with a group of teachers who are truly fighting every day to close the achievement gap all over the country. I heard stories from a brilliant teacher from Los Angeles who told me 80% of her students are undocumented making basic safety a major factor in her classroom. Other stories from a teacher in Memphis who told me that the children in his school are in the bottom 2% of achievement in the country and how the impact that can have on moral among staff and students is beyond words, and the stories went on. I listened and shared and soaked up all of their hope. Because what was impactful was not the weight of their realities, we know similar challenges in CPS, but that all of these teachers are hopeful and are fighting every day to do better for themselves, their students and communities, and this country.
Throughout my DC whirlwind adventure as well as on Tuesday night at the policy meeting here in Chicago, Paul Wellstone's words have continued to haunt me. We all do better when we all do better. The reality is that we all need to do better. All of us. We have an achievement gap that is devastatingly large and we are not doing a good job of keeping quality teachers in our neediest schools. It needs to change and it needs to change quickly. After all of my experiences in the past week, I have hope.
My other favorite memory of Senator Paul Wellstone is that he used to cheer every year at the Twin Cities Marathon. He would stand at the bottom of the hill leading into the state capitol and give enthusiastic high fives, telling runners, "only one mile to go!" While I never saw him in person and was not old enough to run marathons when he passed away, I think any runner would agree that an enthusiastic cheer squad can make all the difference in the world.
My other favorite memory of Senator Paul Wellstone is that he used to cheer every year at the Twin Cities Marathon. He would stand at the bottom of the hill leading into the state capitol and give enthusiastic high fives, telling runners, "only one mile to go!" While I never saw him in person and was not old enough to run marathons when he passed away, I think any runner would agree that an enthusiastic cheer squad can make all the difference in the world.
And so, as my students and I wave good-bye to ISAT testing this week, I will be cheering for them in the same way that Senator Wellstone did the marathon runners. If you are a teacher, I hope you are cheering for your students too. Because we all do better when we all do better.
It's not only in the teaching profession that an achievement gap exists. It's real in my profession as well. I now have a copy of Wellstone's book on my Kindle. I hope that it will give me the fire to cheer and encourage those that I work with to achieve greater heights.
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