Adequate Yearly Progress

by Roxanna Elden

  But what, exactly, was his part? Why had Nick Wallabee’s secretary been so adamant that Dr. Barrios participate? He mentally traced the arc of the show, trying to figure out how the script might end. They’d clapped benignly for the teacher, then ignored her. They’d booed the union representative. What did that mean for Mr. Status Quo himself? Were they saving the worst for last?

  “And now,” Melinda Morningside continued, “if you care about kids as much as I think you do, you’ll really love our next guest. He’s the star of a recent documentary, and you may remember he had some tough words for one failing principal.”

  The lights went down. Dr. Barrios braced himself as the clip began playing on the screen above his head. The familiar words cascaded over him in suffocating waves.

  Too many students who can win on the football field but not in college and the workforce… Dr. Barrios: Are you a leader who will do whatever it takes to win for children?

  Then Melinda Morningside’s voice, which seemed to come from every direction at once: “Well, it so happens the man behind those words is here with us today. Please welcome Superintendent Nick Wallabee!”

  Pulsing strobe lights eviscerated the darkness. Music pounded. Nick Wallabee strode onto the stage to wild applause.

  He did not sit down.

  Instead, Melinda stood up, joining him at the front of the stage like a dance partner. “Superintendent Wallabee, we all know you mean business. But we want to hear you tell us yourself: How much are you willing to do for our children?”

  “Well, Melinda, I’m glad you mentioned business, because here in this school district, we’re in the business of educating children.”

  Melinda Morningside was nodding vigorously.

  “And just like any great business, we do”—Wallabee paused until everyone in the wide room was leaning toward him—“whatever it takes to win!”

  The crowd cheered like a concert audience hearing the live version of their favorite song.

  A knot began forming somewhere in Dr. Barrios’s chest.

  “And the main thing any successful business owner can tell you is that when they have competition, it forces them to make their business stronger.”

  The audience sizzled with the promise of schools that ran like successful businesses.

  “That’s why we’re opening up our school system to that same businesslike competition. In fact, we’re telling businesses, If you think you can educate our students better than our district schools, come on in and do it. And if our district schools want to keep their students, well, they’ll have to do… whatever it takes to win!”

  Here, Wallabee paused for level 7 audience applause.

  “And today, I’m excited to announce that Global Schoolhouse School Choice Solutions has responded to that challenge! They’ll be opening several schools, and every one of them will be equipped with top-of-the-line answering clicker technology!”

  Melinda Morningside, who’d mostly been supporting Nick Wallabee with dramatic facial expressions, lifted up the Teachnology clicker with a wink.

  The formless unease growing within Dr. Barrios’s chest began to take shape. The schools Wallabee was describing were for-profit charter schools. They weren’t just comparable to businesses—they were businesses. They took in the same per-pupil funding as public schools, paying the district a nominal fee to “oversee” them. The lack of regulations applying to charter schools allowed them to cut costs and keep the difference. Dr. Barrios had heard stories of schools that bought supplies from companies owned by the same parent corporation, or rented space from themselves, sometimes closing in the middle of the year if they didn’t turn a profit. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so surprised, though. Making money, after all, was the way businesses won.

  But Wallabee wasn’t done. “They’re also offering a virtual charter school option so our greatest teachers—those who really believe in children—can reach beyond the walls of their classrooms and believe in thousands of children at once!”

  The room exploded.

  Dr. Barrios snuck a look at the union representative. He wondered if she got as furious about virtual charter schools as Mr. Weber, who could go on for hours. Compared to a real school, with a lunchroom, and air-conditioning, and teachers, it cost almost nothing to educate students online—and for-profit companies knew it. Some had entire sales teams working on commission to get families to choose the virtual option. Closing the deal, they called it.

  The union representative was now notably less composed. She was talking angrily into her microphone, but it appeared to have been turned off, as were the lights on her side of the stage. The only light was on Nick Wallabee and Melinda Morningside.

  Which meant Dr. Barrios, too, was in the dark. This realization allowed him to take what felt like his first full breath in hours.

  “To help spread the word about our new school-choice options,” continued Wallabee, “we’re going to have all our teachers write one Winning Strategy on the board each day. They’ll also wear T-shirts that remind students that just like any successful business or winning sports team, our schools will do—”

  From the back of the audience, someone yelled, “Whatever it takes to win!”

  “It so happens we have a few of those T-shirts right here,” said Melinda Morningside. “Let’s get that gentleman back there a T-shirt!”

  A crew member rolled a T-shirt cannon onto one edge of the stage.

  “And how about the rest of you? What are we willing to do for our children?!”

  “Whatever! It takes! To win! Whatever! It takes! To win!” This group was not going home without free T-shirts.

  It turned into a chant so loud that at first Melinda Morningside had to yell to be heard. “I love the energy in here! But”—her voice dropped to a normal speaking tone, and the crowd quieted to listen again—“there is one person we haven’t heard from yet, and it’s a testament to Superintendent Wallabee’s leadership that this man is here with us today.”

  A spotlight turned on, shining right into Dr. Barrios’s eyes, bearing down on him like a train in a tunnel. His makeup felt heavy and itchy, but he dared not raise an arm to touch his face. Whatever Melinda Morningside asked next, there would be no answer that could satisfy this crowd. He was only seconds away from another floundering humiliation, broadcast live to the city, to the world, to his family.

  “Let’s hear now from the principal we saw in that video, Dr. Miguel Barrios!”

  Dr. Barrios smiled weakly, bracing himself for a chorus of boos.

  But instead, the crowd grew silent.

  And now Melinda Morningside was turning toward him with a flawless expression of interest. “Dr. Barrios, you got a big warning earlier this year, but Nick Wallabee has told us he’s worked hard to make sure your school is all about business. So we all want to know one thing: What are you willing to do for our children now?”

  Still no boos, no angry faces. On the contrary, the crowd was staring at him with an intensity so familiar that he understood all at once, like a flash of the Holy Spirit.

  The look in everyone’s eyes was not anger: it was hope. For the first time in months, Dr. Miguel Barrios, EdD, was not here to be booed, or yelled at, or put on notice. He was here to bear witness, to testify to the mercy and greatness of a force more powerful than himself. He was here to be saved. All he had to do was say his part.

  A surge of gratitude overtook him, so strong that his arms felt weightless, rising toward the ceiling of their own accord. He pulled as much air into his dry throat as he could and yelled, “Whatever…! It takes… ! To win!”

  The end of the sentence was lost in the rapturous applause of the crowd.

  TRAINING

  THE TEACHCORPS WORKSHOP facilitator put a finger to her lips as they entered the silent room. She was thin, blond, and perfectly formed except for her mouth, which seemed a few gradations too high on her chin. She handed Kaytee a marker, then pointed toward several large squares of paper stuck to the walls.r />
  What does a well-managed class LOOK like? said one.

  What does a well-managed class SOUND like? said another.

  The room was a model of silent participation. The only noise was the occasional squeak of markers as workshop members added phrases like on task and organized to the growing list.

  Achievement-oriented thoughts and actions, wrote Kaytee.

  Her blog post that morning had been short, but within an hour it had already attracted 195 comments. She’d had to pry herself from the computer to make it to the training session on time. Now, positivity coursed through her veins. She visualized herself in her own classroom, finger to her lips, guiding students through a silent task during which no one bumped into anyone else, or purposely broke the silence with loud questions, or threw paper, or let out long sighs or defiant cheek-sucking noises—

  She caught herself. She was thinking of Michelle Thomas again.

  Diamonique had become more cooperative since the fight and sometimes looked at Kaytee with what seemed like remorse. But Michelle—

  No, Kaytee thought. She would not do this. She rerouted her concentration back to the TeachCorps training space, which was clean and quiet, with modern office furniture and large, sun-filled windows.

  Still silent, the facilitator motioned for everyone to sit. Then she began taking attendance. “Kaytee?”

  Kaytee and another girl raised their hands at the same time.

  “Sorry. There are two of you!” The facilitator’s eyes stayed open as she smiled. The white parts of them were outstandingly white. “Katie with an I-E.”

  Kaytee lowered her hand.

  “Jordan?” called the facilitator. Kaytee looked toward the one guy in the workshop, but Jordan turned out to be one of the five girls. Her hair was in pigtails. She was wearing the type of funky, ultrastylish pants that could only be worn by girls thin and funky enough to also wear pigtails.

  They were all thin. Even the guy had the wiry build of someone who biked everywhere, with long, sinewy arms jutting from his plaid shirt. The girl sitting next to Jordan was so skinny that her elbows reminded Kaytee of a praying mantis. They all sipped water relentlessly, not even glancing at the bowls of candy in the center of each table. Kaytee, too, tried to ignore the candy. Despite the weight-tracking chart in front of her scale, she had managed to gain another three pounds since the start of the school year.

  “Aman… thay?”

  The one black girl in the room, also thin, raised her hand. “It’s Amantha, though. Like Samantha but with no S.”

  “Sorry.” The facilitator smiled her open-eyed smile again. “Aman-thuh? Am I pronouncing that right?”

  “Yes.”

  A few of the workshop participants reached into their bags and retrieved papers they’d brought to grade during any downtime. Kaytee immediately felt guilty for not bringing any student work.

  “Okay!” The facilitator’s voice was a model of calm and cheer. “I just want to start by saying that I am a facilitator, not a boss or expert. I am just here to facilitate as we all learn from one another. So, just to clarify the norms and expectations before we begin, our most important norm is that we commit to unpacking our assumptions so we can co-investigate our subject matter from a stance of respect. Also, please keep your phones on silent.”

  They fumbled with their phones, then looked back at the facilitator, who now held up a decorated shoebox. “I’d like to start by having everyone in here physically unpack their preconceptions and assumptions and put them in this assumption box. I’ll model by going first.” She mimed the opening of a large, invisible package in front of her, lifting out what looked to be about six to seven pounds of preconceptions and assumptions and laying them gently in the box. Then she passed the box to Jordan, who poured out the contents of a slightly smaller invisible package before passing the box to the praying mantis–elbowed girl, whose invisible burden managed to be even smaller.

  When the last tiny parcel of assumptions had been safely unloaded, the group began to applaud, but the facilitator stopped them with a raised hand.

  “One last norm I’d like to introduce in here is that instead of clapping, we raise the roof !” She demonstrated by jerking her palms into the air with an emphatic woo-hoo. “Now you try it.”

  “Woo-hoo!” Most of the group pressed their palms against an imaginary roof beam just above their heads.

  “Amantha—am I pronouncing that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t see and hear you raising the roof. ”

  Amantha-am-I-pronouncing-that-right raised her palms and said, “Woo-hoo.”

  “That was great! Now, you all may notice that I just demonstrated one of the TeachCorps classroom-management principles, which is that when a student is not participating, you need to remind them they are part of the group and you expect them to participate. That’s part of setting high expectations for everyone. Now, let’s all raise the roof again for one hundred percent participation in this activity!”

  Kaytee woo-hooed along with the rest of the group. She tried to imagine asking her own students to raise the roof. All she could picture, however, was a lethargic chorus of eye rolls and lackluster, one-handed roof raises, punctuated by a long sigh from Michelle.

  Focus, Kaytee reminded herself as the facilitator moved to the next agenda item, on schedule to the minute.

  It was all so well planned. Unlike the materials from district-led workshops, the TeachCorps folder had no missing or misstapled pages, no obvious spelling mistakes in the handouts, nothing to distract Kaytee as she took notes, growing more optimistic as she wrote. This was what she had been missing, this sense of being part of a movement full of people so… right that they needed their own set of protocols, their own words, almost their own language, to express how right they were. The sense of shared rightness comforted her, carrying her along like a gentle stream.

  It was almost time for lunch when the facilitator closed her notebook, reminding them again that she was just the facilitator, not the boss or the expert.

  “We are all here to be thought partners for one another,” she reassured the group. “So I’d like to invite you to share out specific classroom challenges you’d like to deep-dive into with the help of the thought partners in this room.”

  Kaytee drew in a breath.

  The thought partners in the room sipped water, flipped through their stacks of student work, said nothing.

  “My class is actually going very well,” volunteered Jordan.

  “Mine, too,” said Katie-with-an-I-E. “I pretty much already do all of the stuff we’ve discussed.” She closed the folder in front of her gently, as if to illustrate how little she needed the information inside.

  An edge had crept into the air. The thought partners eyed one another like gladiators entering an arena.

  “I’m having a problem,” Kaytee heard herself say. “I mean, a challenge.”

  She felt the eyes in the room snap toward her.

  “Before Thanksgiving break, there was this incident—two girls got into a fight in my class.” Even as she spoke, she was aware of condensing the story, careful not to give the wrong impression to her thought partners. She continued. “One of them has gotten better, but the other one has more of an attitude than ever.”

  But that wasn’t the whole story, either. There were more details she had to share if she really wanted a deep-diving co-investigation, and she forced herself to keep talking, to elaborate when necessary. She was surprised by how unburdened she felt. For the first time, she understood how much she’d needed to share this experience with people who might understand—who might even be able to help. The story was a heavy load she’d been carrying for a long time.

  “First of all,” said the facilitator, “let’s raise the roof to honor Kaytee’s willingness to speak her truth in the sharing space we’ve created!”

  “Woo-hoo!” The group pushed its palms toward the ceiling.

  “Now let’s open t
he floor up for some clarifying questions.”

  Jordan spoke first. “I noticed that you use the word attitude, which is a highly subjective word. When you say that the girl has an attitude, are you sure that you’re not just interpreting her actions based on your assumptions about her home culture?”

  Kaytee’s sense of relief skidded to a halt. Asking if someone was making assumptions about a student’s home culture was the TeachCorps-endorsed language for questioning whether the person might be racist.

  “I don’t think so—I mean, she’s always putting her head down while I’m talking, and every time I ask the class to do something, she—” Kaytee caught herself before she did an impression of Michelle’s eye-rolling, cheek-sucking sigh. That would have definitely made her seem like a teacher who was making assumptions about a student’s home culture. Several thought partners, including Amantha-am-I-pronouncing-that-right, seemed to be watching her in anticipation of just such an impression. “I, uh, think it’s fair to say she’s being deliberately uncooperative.”

  Katie-with-an-I-E jumped in. “I’d just like to piggyback on Jordan’s question and ask, what were you teaching when the fight started? I’ve noticed that since I make sure my class material is always relevant to students’ lives, they’re much less likely to get off task.”

  “Actually—” Kaytee tried not to sound defensive. Suggesting a teacher’s lessons were not relevant was another way of saying the teacher might be the type of person who made assumptions about students’ home cultures.

  “One thing I always make sure my students know,” said the guy in the plaid shirt, “is that even though they’re Latinx and African American, I don’t expect any less from them academically.”

  “Remember, clarifying questions only!” The facilitator’s tone reaffirmed that she was just facilitating, not posing as an expert.

  “Sorry,” said the guy. “I mean, I’m wondering if you’ve been explicit about your high expectations for your students? Like I have? Also, my students respect me?”