Will Jonathan Graduate?

An eye-opening, maddening and thought-provoking account of a Washington, D.C. high school student and whether or not he will be able to graduate. I was surprised at how bad the culture of high school for teenagers has become since my own high school days in the 1980s in Philadelphia.

Kathryne Lewis sees the boy her son used to be. The boy who made B's, helped kids with their class work and won first place at his sixth-grade science fair. That boy is gone, and if Jonathan doesn't graduate, she fears, all anyone will see is a big, young, uneducated black man -- the exact same as not seeing anything at all. He'll spend his days doing nothing much with friends who dropped out. He'll become a statistic, and, good Lord, she does not want that to happen.

Jonathan's mother attended George Washington University for two years and is a corporate project coordinator. His father attended Howard University for three years and is a Metro technician. The two never married, but Allen Putman lived nearby and saw his son nearly every day, watched him play baseball, took him for haircuts. His parents have pushed him.

Jonathan, 18, says he can see where he wants to go: graduation, college, then owning a business, maybe doing graphic design or creating video games. This is what education is supposed to prepare you for, academically, socially and emotionally: to join the real world, to become a productive citizen. But in Washington, the social contract between students and schools has been broken in all kinds of ways.

Full article here from the Washington Post.

Here is the link to the Washington Post series “Fixing D.C.’s Schools.”

The subject of education reform at urban schools is one of the most highly-charged and inflammatory subjects in American social discourse. Mayor Adrian Fenty is the latest of a long list of reformers who aim to tackle the inadequacies and problems of D.C. public schools and his efforts are being closely watched.

We had our share of problems in the Philadelphia magnet school that I attended in the 1980s. But for the most part, we as students, were fairly well-behaved, treated teachers with respect, and went on to graduate and then go on to college and skilled trades. My high school had a very high rate of students who went on to college and we could count among our alumni some students who graduated from the Ivy Leagues.

Which is why the description of Coolidge High in D.C. through the story of Jonathan surprised and saddened me. Disrespectful students, out of control classes, rampant truancy, a culture of mediocrity, and teachers who were often absent and subject to physical assaults—these things were fairly routine in the day-to-day operation of this public school. I thought to myself—even if a student were motivated to rise above these circumstances and want to learn and to apply him or herself to studies, the resources and consistent support needed from the school, their families, and other students are largely absent.

Speaking in hindsight as someone who graduated from high school, college and graduate school, these students are already far behind in the game of Life in terms of being able to compete with well-educated students from private schools and well-funded, suburban public high schools, qualify for white-collar and professional jobs, and to go on to college or skilled trades. And that’s a crying shame because the article points out many of these students are talented, intelligent and if were in different circumstances would really shine and succeed.

I have often witnessed discussions of solutions degenerate to finger-pointing and partisan blame-gaming. There are some who would advocate funneling the funding from these struggling public schools to charter schools and vouchers for private schools. There are those who blame the teacher unions for making it difficult to hire and fire effective teachers and who oppose initiatives like President Bush’s No Child Left Behind policy.

There are those who would advocate for a fairer way to fund these schools because the current system which relies on property taxes has a lopsided effect of excellent, well-funded suburban schools in affluent areas and crumbling facilities and understaffed schools in urban and poor rural areas. Then there are those who would advocate an individualistic approach where the student and his or her family take full responsibility for their destiny in the educational system and focus on values, achievement, discipline, and family ties as a bulwark against the negative surroundings and environment.

Often lost are voices of teachers and school administrators in the front lines and the students themselves who are being done a disservice by the educational institutions that are supposed to mold them to educated, productive citizens.

I don’t consider myself a partisan and happen to find a grain of truth in the arguments of all sides of the issue. As a citizen in a supposed democracy I find it hard enough to navigate the professional world and to seriously perform my duties as a citizen. Much more so if I did not have the middle-class advantages and education that I do now. As a white-collar, working professional I wonder if there is a role for people like me to play in lending a helping hand to these young people who are probably oblivious to the fact that they are rapidly being left behind.

I applied for and was rejected for Teach for America at one point in my life and a teaching fellowship program in D.C. does exist to recruit working professionals to the profession of teaching. I was a volunteer in an afterschool tutoring program at one point. But as one of my articles points out, trying to be a professional do-gooder is not always what it is cracked out to be. A career in public service is often low-paying, emotionally draining, and makes you subject to derision and insults from jerks who would rather mock and insult people who try to balance having a career with idealism. Student loans, after all, still have to be paid even by idealists with do-gooder degrees and graduate credentials.

This is a huge problem and I don't have any ready answers. I do applaud the Washington Post for focusing a considerable amount of attention to this issue.