Adequate Yearly Progress

by Roxanna Elden

  Coach Ray felt his face redden. “Tell me you did not pull any stupid shit.”

  “I’m trying, Coach, but these girls…” Rigby raised his palms as if to show his helplessness in the situation. It was clear he was trying not to smile.

  “Girls,” Coach Ray hissed, “do not like football. Girls like attention. And accusing you of rape is gonna equal a shitload of attention.”

  He was so angry he forgot that this was not a subject to discuss in front of Daren Grant, who now jumped in as if someone had asked him to help. “O’Neal, this is brother to brother here: you have to look at every woman as someone who could be your sister or your mother, not as an object.”

  “Well, what if she act like an object?” Rigby gave Grant a look that said he had listened nicely to the whole international travel thing, and now it was his turn to brag. “What if she show up at my boy’s house and tells us her mama think she at her cousin’s for the night? That sound like somebody trying to be an object to me.”

  Coach Ray could not contain himself any longer. “Boy, were you not in this motherfucking school last year to see what happened to your teammate?”

  Grant broke in again. “No need to use the word boy, Coach, ha-ha.”

  Ray whipped around to face him. “What?”

  “I’m just saying—that can be taken the wrong way. Ha. Ha.”

  A half year’s worth of rage swelled inside Ray. He heard the door to the classroom open, but ignored it, as single-minded as a player going for a touchdown. “Listen, son, I will call my players anything I want to.”

  He was not about to explain himself to some kid in a button-down shirt talking to him like he was some Hill Country racist. He didn’t have to tell Daren Grant he picked players up in the mornings, drove them home after late games, sat with them in the hospital after knee surgery. He was as close a thing to a father as a lot of these boys had.

  “Uh, Coach?” Marquez was looking toward the door.

  Coach Ray ignored him. He leveled his gaze at Daren Grant, who looked like he was trying to figure out what to do with his arms. It was time to tell this kid some things about himself that he wasn’t gonna like.

  “Hi, Dad!” The sound of a young girl’s voice was so out of place that it took a moment for Coach Ray to realize where it had come from.

  He turned and suddenly found himself staring right at Allyson, who stood in the doorway wearing a shiny white cheerleading uniform. The fabric was nearly see-through, even more revealing than the uniforms of the Killer Armadillos’ cheerleaders.

  Coach Ray jumped to his feet. “Hey…” It seemed he should insert some type of pet name here, sweetie or dear or honey, but none of these seemed like they would come out right. “Your mother let you come to school in that uniform?”

  “My Aunt Rosemary dropped me off.” Allyson entered the room smiling, as if she were sharing a secret. “My mom doesn’t even know I’m here.”

  This last statement, however, wasn’t entirely correct. Already, they could hear Maybelline Galang’s urgent footsteps in the hallway, her voice growing closer as she said, “No, Rosemary, she’s not in my classroom! I don’t know where she is! I can’t believe you brought her here and just dropped her off!”

  Seconds later, Maybelline appeared in the doorway with the phone in her hand.

  As their daughter turned to face Maybelline in the sparkly uniform, Coach Ray caught a glimpse of how the scene must have looked to her: Behind Allyson sat O’Neal Rigby, the school’s most promising specimen of athletic talent. Above Rigby’s right shoulder was Daren Grant, hovering like an angel in a crisp white shirt. Above Rigby’s left shoulder stood Coach Ray, a vein pumping in his forehead, his face as red as his T-shirt as he met Maybelline’s eyes.

  SYNTHESIZING, CONTINUED

  TEN MINUTES LATER, Maybelline walked her daughter through the door of her own classroom. Coach Ray’s giant red windbreaker was zipped around Allyson, drooping past her knees like a dress. The students in the room looked up as if expecting an explanation.

  “You need to have your work done by the time the bell rings,” said Maybelline. “Remember, there is no makeup work.”

  The students resumed working. If they noticed her hands were shaking, they didn’t show it.

  She turned to Allyson. “Do you have anything from school to work on?”

  Allyson shook her head.

  “Okay, then draw a picture or something. I think there are markers in the closet.”

  Allyson, newly obedient, went to search for the markers.

  Maybelline rearranged the stack of papers on her desk, as if putting them in the right order might align the universe, too. Except that she knew it wouldn’t. Her attempt to help Mr. Scamphers enforce the rules had gotten Hernan fired. And Mr. Scamphers could decide at any time to tell Allyson’s school she was enrolled under a fake address. Next year, if he became principal, who knew what kind of “help” he might demand from her? Maybe it was time to accept that the world would never be put in order.

  The bell rang and the students filed out, placing their classwork in a neat pile on Maybelline’s desk. She instinctively grabbed the first paper, ready to grade it, record it, and place it in the proper pile. But before she could do anything, Allyson’s voice called to her from the depths of the closet.

  “Mom? Whose backpack is this?”

  IDENTIFYING WORDS AND PHRASES IN CONTEXT

  KAYTEE’S STUDENTS KNEW many tricks for passing the TCUP essay test:

  Don’t say big. Say gigantic, or enormous, or gargantuan.

  Don’t say walked. Say strutted, or jogged, or ambled, or some other word from the power-synonym list provided by your English teacher.

  Include a semicolon somewhere; even if you’re using it wrong.

  When possible, show your unique voice by using a phrase like my uncle’s brand-spankin’-new truck.

  If you can’t think of a phrase that shows your unique voice, describing anything as brand-spankin’-new will probably still get you some points.

  Start your essay with an attention-grabbing opener.

  Wow!!!!! is not an attention-grabbing opener.

  Unless you’re really stuck.

  Last, but certainly not least, always do whatever you need to do to make sure you fill at least three-quarters of the space provided, even if you have to end with an extra-long, possibly even rambling or repetitive sentence that says the same thing more than once just to get to the next line of the paper.

  This was composition boiled down to its least fuck-up-able essence. Nearly every essay Kaytee had graded in the past year and a half seemed guided by these principles.

  But law-school admissions essays had a whole different set of requirements. TeachCorps held workshops on how to describe teaching in law-school admissions essays, and in the past few weeks, Kaytee had started attending, writing down suggested phrases such as lead from the classroom and scale up my macro impact for low-income students. These encapsulated the unique glow TeachCorps alumni presented to law schools. Law schools didn’t care about semicolons; they were looking for applicants who’d vaulted life’s obstacles, spat in the face of failure, and learned an important lesson along the way.

  This was the real problem, because writing this essay in the first place was proof that Kaytee Mahoney was not vaulting life’s obstacles. She was giving up.

  Dear Admissions Committee, she pictured writing, I want to go to law school because I will do anything in this world to get out of being a teacher.

  She let out a short, bitter laugh. There was no way to fit that one into the formula.

  Above all, the workshops had advised being specific. Everyone who applied to law school knew how to use big words. They had already breezed through top-tier liberal arts colleges and could produce prose that sizzled like a hot pan touching sink water, extended metaphors that flaunted a flair for analogy. The TeachCorps bump, therefore, required zooming in for emotional resonance. One had to describe a particular student whom one had su
ccessfully muscled toward achievement against the odds. Only then could one explain the need to scale up one’s macro impact by going to graduate school, or working at a consulting firm, or running for office.

  Kaytee logged in to her grade book and perused the names, searching for a student to zoom in on. Jonathan Rodriguez’s main success was controlling his outbursts for short periods of time. Yesenia had never come back to class. And Michelle…

  Just the thought of Michelle Thomas automatically loaded the YouTube video inside Kaytee’s brain, playing it against her will, then forcing her to relive the unendurable moment when she’d scrolled through the comments. Her bitterness returned.

  I’m not sure if I’ve inspired any actual students, she now pictured writing, but the video of me pointing roach spray at my class has certainly inspired thousands of white supremacist Internet trolls! How’s that for scaling up my macro impact? I’m like King Midas, except instead of gold, everything I touch turns to racism!

  All she wanted now was to escape, to get far away, to become an anonymous face at a law school in a coastal northern city from which she would never have to return. And that, she reminded herself, required zooming in for emotional resonance.

  On Brian Bingle.

  Brian Bingle? Of course! Brian was one of the few students who’d accepted her offer of lunchtime help on his civil-rights-leader project. On the due date, his careful work was an exception to the pile of uninspiring last-minute messes she’d received.

  When I think of what it means to lead from the classroom, Kaytee began typing, the first student I think of is Brian.

  Then she stopped. The problem with Brian as an essay topic was that he had been a fairly willing participant in her teaching. More than that—his fierce expression and resolve to keep the class on track had set the tone for her whole first period. Kaytee felt her confidence peeling at the edges. Brian was the leader. He was the one who should be writing the admissions essay, using her as an example.

  Get it together, she told herself, unless you want to “lead from the classroom” again next year. The application deadline was just days away.

  When Brian walked into my classroom this year, his numerous tattoos caught my eye. Wait. That made her sound judgmental. Bad for law school.

  When Brian walked into my classroom this year, his classmates whispered about his tattoos. But that made it sound like none of her other students had tattoos. You didn’t need an amazing teacher for kids who were surprised by tattoos. Law schools were looking for amazing. She started again.

  Other teachers had told me about Brian before he ever entered my history class. He’d been a character in other teachers’ stories, but I believed every child deserved a chance to be the main character of his or her own story. This was the reason I chose to teach history at Brae Hill Valley High School, a school with much history of its own.

  Yes. This struck the right tone. Kaytee reread the paragraph, feeling the congratulatory jolt that accompanied a job well done. She’d even left herself an opening to include the necessary demographic information, which would further prove the school needed an obstacle-hopping, equity-inducing teacher-leader like her. But the numbers could go in later. She’d finally managed to unscrew the lid, and now the essay’s pressurized contents bubbled out: all those hours during lunchtime, helping Brian on his civil-rights-leader project while also encouraging him to study hard in his other classes and even apply to college. Leadership? Check. Determination? Check. Qualified for reasons beyond grades and scores? Check.

  Except… there was one more thing. For the essay to really pack an admissions-worthy punch, she had to make it clear that Brian was African American. Explaining this outright would be clunky and awkward. But the name Brian was so racially neutral. He could have been any kid. And that would just not do.

  Unless—she could change the name, right? The essay was supposed to be anonymous, after all. Kaytee tried to think of a traditionally African American name that would make the point. Jamal? No, that was the kid from How the Status Quo Stole Christmas, with the grandma in the wheelchair. She cycled through names of black civil rights leaders. Malcolm? Martin? No, those had become names that even white families named their children. And she couldn’t use the name of a student she actually taught.

  A blip of conversation surfaced in Kaytee’s memory. Pookie and them Quay’Vante and them.

  She tried to dismiss it, but it would not leave. Quay’Vante and them.

  Quay’Vante.

  Breyonna and her friends had joked about that name at happy hour, and Kaytee had refused to laugh, precisely because Quay’Vante was an unmistakably African American name that suggested a legacy of generational poverty, which made it completely inappropriate to joke about.

  But also, for the same reason, perfect for an admissions essay. Kaytee used the search-and-replace tool to change Brian to Quay’Vante. Rereading her work, she had to admit the name change amped up her difference-making score considerably.

  Her uneasiness returned. The thing was, Brian Bingle wasn’t really the Quay’Vante type. He was, for all intents and purposes, a fairly accurate Brian.

  Then again, it wasn’t like Brian would ever see the essay. And anyway, it wasn’t like all Quay’Vantes were the same, right? Really, if the law-school admissions team presumed a student named Quay’Vante was less likely to succeed than a student named Brian, weren’t they the ones making assumptions about students’ home cultures?

  As she wrote, Quay’Vante’s description snowballed, gathering details from multiple students, quotes in unmistakably ethnic grammar, and background information Kaytee didn’t actually have access to but that seemed likely for a kid who went to an inner-city school.

  The expression inner city felt queasily familiar. She quickly erased it, changing it to underresourced, then to high poverty. Then, in what now seemed only a small change in the service of anonymity, she moved Brian’s tattoo from his arm to his neck.

  The resulting Frankenstudent was a composite character who, had he existed, would have been unlikely to come to Kaytee’s classroom during lunch to work on a project. This left her no choice but to turn up the dial on her own efforts—just a bit. Just enough to draw this updated, downtrodden Brian/Quay’Vante to her classroom, sit him down, inspire him, and cause him to develop an interest in Thurgood Marshall that would encourage Quay’Vante to envision both a history and present in which he has potential to be the main character, and to articulate this narrative so others will take notice. Kaytee edged forward in her chair, leaning into the essay’s momentum.

  All she needed now was a good conclusion. But this posed another challenge: Why would anyone capable of such feats of obstacle-busting teachery leave the Quay’Vantes of the world behind? Wouldn’t she want to be a teacher forever? Wouldn’t she miss the rewards of working with children?

  The rewards of working with children. A cynical puff of air escaped her lips. At what point in a law-school admissions essay did you say you’d been hit in the eye? At what point did you talk about being smacked down by an administrator with a stranger’s baby in her arms? When did you get to mention the assumption box?

  The answer was, you didn’t. Not if you actually wanted to get in. Under no circumstances could Kaytee admit that law school was her escape from the very selling point that would move her to the front of the line: her experience teaching in the inner city.

  The inner city. Why did she keep using that phrase? The queasiness returned, and then the reason for it came to her also, rushing over her with a sickening force.

  Hey, she figured out the new way to clean up our inner cities… Just give every innercity teacher a can of raid… Filling innercity classrooms with roaches at taxpayers expense… round up these animals that have taken over our iner cities. She’d been their mascot. And now she was using their words. The comments closed in around her again, and she struggled to block them out, forcing her fingers back to the keyboard.

  While I know I will miss being
in direct contact with students, I also know I need a law degree to effect the widespread change that will help those with stories like Quay’Vante’s achieve the goals that will lead to a happy ending.

  As she wrote these final lines, she thought again of Brian’s civil-rights-leader project. Even with her lunchtime help, the essay contained an embarrassing number of errors. It was also true that they’d talked about colleges, but even as she offered encouragement, she knew it was likely Brian would spend years completing remedial classes in a community college, or—worse—get sucked in by some for-profit enterprise that left students with few career prospects, credits that didn’t transfer, and debt that made the long slog out of poverty even longer.

  It had always been people like Kaytee who escaped, who wrote the law-school admissions essays, who shared their versions of history and starred in the happy endings. For all the Brians and Quay’Vantes of the world, and even (Say it! ) the Diamoniques and Michelles, Kaytee felt a stab of guilt.

  For what that was worth.

  ADEQUATE YEARLY PROGRESS

  “WHICH IS, OBVIOUSLY, the problem with the whole education system.”

  Dr. Barrios drank a sip of hospital cafeteria coffee and tried again to find a comfortable sitting position. He’d been in the same plastic waiting room chair for hours. At some point, he’d struck up a conversation with a woman next to him and had made the mistake of mentioning that he was a high school principal.

  She’d been delivering a sustained monologue ever since. “I mean, if I ran the schools, the first thing I’d do…”

  Dr. Barrios wasn’t even trying to employ his listening face, though maybe those muscles had gotten such a workout over the past year that he looked attentive even now, as he stared at the door, waiting for news from the doctor.

  There was only one more week of school. Test scores would be in soon, and then Dr. Barrios would learn whether the school had made Adequate Yearly Progress.