Adequate Yearly Progress

by Roxanna Elden

  “She told you say your name and then ask the question, stupid,” said the girl next to Jonathan. Letters across her large hoop earrings spelled Yesenia.

  “An exit ticket is the assignment you’ll turn in as you leave this classroom each day,” Kaytee said. “It’s your ticket to leave the room.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” Jonathan turned back to Yesenia. “You got paper?”

  Yesenia ripped a page from her spiral notebook and handed it to him.

  The attention in the room was developing small cracks. A student near Kaytee put his head down on top of his finished assignment. Others peeked at cell phones.

  “It looks like most of you are finished,” said Kaytee. “Who wants to share what they wrote about democracy?”

  For the first time, the class was completely silent.

  “Anyone?”

  No one.

  “Jonathan! Why don’t you start? What does democracy mean to you?”

  “It’s like when you vote,” said Jonathan, whose paper was still blank.

  “Good. Let’s start there. Who wrote something about voting to elect a leader?”

  A few hands went up.

  “What else?”

  Silence.

  “Come on, guys. This is tenth-grade American history. You’ve got to know something about democracy.”

  To her relief, Yesenia’s hand shot into the air.

  “Yes. Yesenia, right?”

  “I’m in eleventh grade. Why am I in a tenth-grade class?”

  “Did you take American history last year?”

  “Yeah. But I failed.” A few kids in the class laughed.

  “Now who’s stupid?” said Jonathan.

  “Hey!” Kaytee must have sounded angry, because students looked at her in surprise. She raised her voice. “No one in this class is stupid. Do you hear me? No one.”

  Thirty-four pairs of brown eyes were now focused on her.

  She stared back, a new feeling of determination smoldering behind her gaze. “I don’t know what your school experiences have been like in the past, but if you’ve failed, it’s because the adults in charge of your education have let you fail. Not in my class, though. In here, you are going to succeed.” She softened her tone. “We are going to succeed. But to do that, we are going to have to work together.”

  There was an empty bulletin board near the door, and now she marched over and pointed to it. “You see this bulletin board? It’s supposed to have a list of rules on it, but for now, it’s empty. That’s because I’m not going to make rules for you. We’re going to work together to create norms and expectations we all agree on. Because I know you are capable. In fact, I made a presentation about exactly what I expect of you this year.”

  Kaytee turned to a tall African American student sitting next to the light switch. He’d been quiet the whole class, but an ominous knot of muscle in his jaw made Kaytee wonder if he was a potential behavior problem.

  Not problem. Challenge. Behavior challenge.

  And not because he was African American. That would have been totally pathologizing him as other. Just because he looked so… potentially angry.

  “Brian, right? Brian Bingle?” She made sure her tone modeled the same type of respect she would request from her students. Growing up with a father who watched awful Republican “news” and thought all minorities were criminals had made her careful to guard against any hint of racism in her own thoughts.

  Brian Bingle was looking at her, she realized, waiting for her to continue.

  “Um, yes, Brian? Will you please turn off the lights? Thank you, Brian!”

  She had worked on the presentation for hours, timing each slide to give her improvement goals time to sink in. But here, in the classroom, it felt too slow. Two students had put their heads down as soon as the presentation started, and now, several other students had started whispering. Yesenia was staring away from the interactive whiteboard, and Kaytee followed her gaze to the clock. It was getting late. They’d have to skip the norm- and expectation-setting activity for today. If only the slides would move faster…

  But the slides did not move faster.

  Instead, the bell rang, and the last of Kaytee’s improvement goals flashed on the screen unnoticed as students stuffed papers into their backpacks, pushed back their chairs, and shoved noisily toward the door.

  “Don’t forget to turn in your exit tickets!” yelled Kaytee.

  THE CURRICULUM STANDARD OF THE DAY ACHIEVEMENT INITIATIVE

  NICK WALLABEE WAS not at the emergency weekend principals’ meeting—at least not physically. Instead, his giant face presided over the room from a large screen connected to a computer at the Malibu Innovation Festival, where famous innovators solved the problems of the world in highly publicized meetings.

  The festival had caused such a surge of innovative energy in Nick Wallabee that he’d called this emergency meeting to announce the Curriculum Standard of the Day Achievement Initiative, which had forced Dr. Barrios to drive home early from a visit to his in-laws, which had in turn caused a long bout of silent treatment from Mrs. Barrios.

  At least he wasn’t alone.

  The other principals whose schools had been chosen for the Believers Zone were here, too. The unlucky lot of them sat together in the windowless room full of motivational posters, trying their best to look enthusiastic. The implied message had been lost on none of them: some of the people in this room would end the year “resigning” to “spend more time with their families.”

  That was what people always said, wasn’t it, when they had to pretend they weren’t being fired? On top of everything else, you had to pretend you wanted to spend more time listening to your son and his wife argue about their home renovations, or watching your daughter’s kids play video games at the table in restaurants.

  An anxiety Dr. Barrios had been suppressing crept back into his chest. None of the other principals were sitting next to him. They’d offered conciliatory smiles from across the room, but it was clear they were keeping their distance from the colleague whose armpit had been front-page news. Could he blame them? The image surfaced from the depths of his memory even now, spraying him with shame. He’d become the visual representation of the mess Wallabee promised to clean up in the district. For the first time in his career, Dr. Barrios was first in line to be the principal who wanted to spend more time with the family.

  Why was it, anyway, that no one could just say fired? His own father had been let go (as if he’d been trying to escape) after nearly thirty years as the manager of a discount auto-parts store. No one wanted to hire a manager who was five years from retirement age, and the elder Barrios had roamed the house for months, replacing light bulbs, demanding that relatives bring their cars over so he could investigate squeaks and rattles. Eventually, he took the only job that would have him: bagging groceries at Fiesta Supermarket, shrinking as he took orders from a store manager who still had acne.

  Dr. Barrios took another sip of cafeteria-grade coffee and checked his image at the bottom of the screen, trying to figure out how to best make eye contact with Nick Wallabee’s giant face.

  The face looked off into the middle distance, eyes narrowed with intensity, as if Wallabee were posing for a picture on an innovation-conference poster. Then it turned back toward the screen. “All teachers are to have the Curriculum Standard of the Day written on their boards. If they don’t, I’ll expect their Believer Scores to reflect that.”

  A waiter crossed behind Wallabee, holding a tray of something that looked delicious. Dr. Barrios had not eaten breakfast.

  “Any questions?” asked Wallabee’s face.

  No, sir, thought Dr. Barrios. He was letting other people ask the questions from now on. Ever since the day of the press conference, he’d become clear about one main thing: Miguel Barrios, EdD, did not want to spend more time with his family. If Wallabee wanted some new thing written on the board, it would be written on the board.

  One of the other principals raised
a hand. “These standards: Are they similar to the ones we’ve been using? Or… can you give an example of what one of the new ones might look like?”

  “Soon.” Behind Wallabee, a group of vaguely famous faces began chatting.

  “Will we be getting any new materials or books?”

  “This is not about bells and whistles,” said Wallabee, steadily raising his voice until the faces behind him turned in his direction. “This is about leadership! This is about making sure our children have teachers who believe in them!”

  Wallabee turned to the faces behind him. “Sorry, fellas,” he said. “Nothing makes me more emotional than talking about the kids.”

  Then he turned back to the screen again. “I have to go. I’m about to be on a panel. But you’ll receive an e-mail with the first standards to be covered. Is everyone clear?”

  The principals sat in uneasy silence until someone ventured the final, lingering question.

  “When exactly do we start this initiative?”

  “Tomorrow,” said Nick Wallabee’s face, and the screen went black.

  ELEMENTS OF POETRY

  “WHAT’S A MOSQUE?”

  “A mosque is… a religious center for Muslims.” Lena scanned her students’ expressions, then added, “It’s like a church. But for Muslim people.”

  “Muslims believe in God?”

  Lena adjusted the headband that held her curls away from her face. She considered the many paths the discussion might take from here and the difficulty of navigating back from any of them to her original lesson plan.

  Two years ago, in her interview with Dr. Barrios and Mrs. Rawlins, she had said she’d love to work with low-level readers—had, in fact, produced quite a monologue on how important it was for teachers to get away from the deficit model of education, which focused on what students didn’t know, and instead prioritize bringing the community into the school, connecting course material with the rich tapestry of students’ interests and life experiences. This monologue had inspired vigorous head-nodding from Mrs. Rawlins during the interview and had probably gotten her the job.

  Also, they really needed someone to work with low-level readers.

  What Lena hadn’t anticipated, however, was the vast amount of explaining she’d have to do when she introduced… almost anything. Today, for example, she was showing a video of a Palestinian American poet speaking about the backlash against Muslims after 9/11. But when students didn’t know what a mosque was, it was hard to discuss poetry about anti-Islamic hate crimes. Harder still was any discussion of comparative religion or the differences between mono- and polytheism. It went without saying she couldn’t talk about atheism—Texas was no place to question whether there was really some bearded white man in the sky who cared whether you were still a virgin. Often, it was best to supply just enough background to keep the class moving forward.

  “The Jewish, Muslim, and Christian religions all believe in one God,” said Lena. Then she pressed Play.

  A burst of static from the PA speaker drowned out the first line of the poem. “Good morning, students and teachers. Thank you for an interruption. On today we will begin implementing the Curriculum Standard of the Day Achievement Initiative.”

  As she paused the video, Lena sighed. Not on today, she thought. Just today. On today and on tomorrow were some of the strange corruptions of grammar she’d noticed since moving to Texas. She could never keep herself from mentally correcting them—or, for that matter, many of the other things Mrs. Rawlins said.

  “Teachers, please check your e-mail and then write today’s Curriculum Standard of the Day on the board in its entirety.”

  Lena opened her e-mail. If she found the standard quickly, she could probably finish writing it before the announcement ended. Mrs. Rawlins, the more grammatically questionable of the school’s two assistant principals, was never happier than when speaking over the PA.

  But the first thing Lena saw was not the Curriculum Standard of the Day. It was an announcement from the emcee of poetry night at her favorite club: Nex Level was back in town.

  The moment wrapped its arms around her, warming her with hope.

  For Nex Level was the poet whose words had reawakened her soul over the summer, at the rally against police brutality. The ferocious rhythm of his poetry had merged with her own thoughts, igniting the blaze of inspiration within her. And he’d be performing next Friday.

  The PA clicked off, and Lena restarted the poem. She always shared this poem in the days before September 11, as the country—and Texas in particular—geared up for an intense bout of American pride. This eloquent Muslim woman, born and raised in Brooklyn, her brother in the navy, was an example of the lesson Lena most hoped to teach: there was power in poetry. The right words, arranged in the right order, were like the combination to a lock, opening doors long sealed shut by stereotypes and typecasting.

  Lena Wright knew plenty about stereotypes and typecasting. As a teenager at a performing-arts magnet school, she’d been eternally cast as the finger-snappin’, neck-rollin’, streetwise black friend who was fond of the phrase You go, girl. (Occasionally, she played the Puerto Rican friend—equally sassy, but with a different accent.) Even at parties, expectant white people surrounded her, clapping off beat and waiting for her to break it down on the dance floor, or making solicitous eye contact as they chanted along to decades-old rap lyrics. Go, Lena, it’s your birthday! This is how we do it! I got ninety-nine problems, but a bitch ain’t one!

  In college, she had avoided theater classes altogether; it was time to write her own lines for a change. She channeled her performance skills into spoken-word poetry, joined activist groups on campus, blasted her professors with essays on the racist imagery in Shakespeare’s works.

  And then she’d graduated and moved to Texas.

  It was a choice she had trouble explaining. Why not New York? asked her classmates. Why a former slave state? wondered her parents. Why leave a city like Philadelphia for a giant, hot expanse of paved-over farmland with no real public transportation? Which was to say, Why the South?

  But the South was the point exactly. Moving south held the promise of going back to something older, something real, a solid point of connection from which her branch of ancestors had long ago departed. All she knew was that she’d teach in a community like this one, guiding students in meaningful discussions, leaving them with a sense of pride in their heritage.

  Which was why, her first year, as she watched a cluster of black girls sit out picture day because they hadn’t had their hair done, she’d felt a surge of responsibility. If she could only find the right words, in the right order, she could reach them and make them understand. We don’t need other people’s hair to be beautiful. We don’t need other people’s poetry to be brilliant. Everything we need is already inside us. It was that night that she’d shaved her head, a poem forming in her mind to the rhythmic buzz of the clippers.

  The next day, she had performed it for the class. I’m strong and brown like a tree / Gonna stand tall and true / Cut off the leaves—Lena pointed toward her newly shiny scalp—Wave my branches / And let my roots show through.

  The room had exploded in applause, and Lena concealed her delight by shuffling some papers on her desk.

  Miss Wright?

  She’d looked up, following the voice to a dark face framed by a shiny, improbably light brown head of hair. Yes, Tyesha?

  Tyesha used one acrylic nail to push a silky strand from her face. She seemed confused. You all black, Miss Wright?

  Of course. Why?

  Oh. We thought you was mixed.

  THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

  “I HAVE A story for you. But you have to figure out the ending.” Seven years earlier, when Hernan first started teaching biology, he would have launched right into the directions for the class’s first experiment. These days, he started with a riddle.

  “There’s this crow—one of those big, black birds you sometimes see on telephone wires.” He shouldn’
t have had to explain what a crow was, but he’d seen even the simplest concepts derail students’ understanding.

  “The crow hasn’t eaten in a long time. He’s about to die from hunger. All of a sudden, he sees a worm floating in a pitcher of water, and he knows his last chance to survive is to eat this worm.” Here, Hernan lifted a graduated cylinder from his demonstration table. A plastic worm floated on top of a few inches of water.

  “The crow tries to put his beak into the top of the pitcher, but he can’t get his head in far enough without getting stuck.” Hernan pinched his fingers together to form an imaginary beak, pushing them halfway into the mouth of the pitcher. “There’s only a little water left in the pitcher, so the worm isn’t high enough for him to reach it, but he knows that if he gives up, he’s going to die of hunger. Then, finally, he figures out—”

  A burst of static from the PA speaker stopped him.

  “Thank you for an interruption.” Mrs. Rawlins’s voice crackled. “Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and the Texas Pledge.”

  There was a notable difference between the speed at which students oozed upright for the pledges and the velocity with which they sprang from their seats at the end of class. Watching students stand up in this context reminded Hernan of The Road to Homo Sapiens, an illustration of the stages of evolution long ago banned from Texas textbooks. Mrs. Rawlins was already saying, “… one nation, under God,” when the last student erected himself into Oreopithecus posture.

  “Come on, Lamont,” urged Hernan. “You’re not ninety years old.”

  “Teachers, please be reminded to write today’s Curriculum Standard of the Day on the board in its entirety.”

  Hernan walked around the room, placing upright plastic tubes on each lab table. These last-minute announcements always dragged on the momentum of the class.

  A girl squinted into her plastic tube. “The hell? Is that a dead worm?”

  Instead of answering, Hernan grabbed a Ziploc bag of tweezers from his demonstration table and handed it to her. “Pass these out for me, Nilda. One on each table.”