Lily sharing "Where the Wild Things Are" as part of NEA's Read Across America

James was not confused.  He was mad.  At me.

“We’re not lucky!” he pouted.  “We live in a homeless shelter don’tcha know!”

Second graders are old enough to know where they live.  They know they don’t have a house or an apartment like they used to.  In my shelter school class there were anywhere from five to fifteen kids on any given day.  These were the kids whose parents wouldn’t allow them to attend the “regular” school down the street, usually because someone was looking for them.  An abusive spouse or a loan shark or a drug dealer.

And I had just called them lucky.

I had just said, “A lot of very nice people do some very nice things for our school.  And now it’s time for us to do something for kids who aren’t as lucky as you are.”

“We live in a homeless shelter,” James reminded me through clenched teeth.

“Come here, Sweetie.”

James slouched over to me in the reading corner with the other kids watching.

“Make a muscle, Superman.”

And he did.  James liked to show off how strong he was.

“I see you on the playground hanging by your knees, and I watch you help the little kids get up on the monkey bars.  And I have never ever, ever seen a better cartwheel.”

“And I can stand on my head, too.”  James straightened up, but still didn’t smile.

I said, “It’s Dr. Seuss’s birthday on March 2nd, and we’re going to raise some money and go to the bookstore and buy books for kids who don’t have legs.  We’re going to buy some books for kids who lost their arms.  We’re going to buy fun books for kids who will never do a cartwheel because they’re not as strong and healthy as you are.  You are lucky enough to have two good arms and two good legs and that’s something they will never have.”

I said, “But they can know that somebody cared enough about them to give them a fun book to read while they’re in the Shriners’ hospital trying to get better.  It’s boring sitting in bed all day.  So James, would you like to help someone who’s not as lucky as you are?”

“Well, like we could get ‘em Where the Wild Things Are!” smiles James.

And all hands fly up.  And all the shouts of favorite books fly out.  And with all their mighty strength my sweeties are ready to use their superpowers to help someone who isn’t as lucky as they are.

CELEBRATE NEA’S READ ACROSS AMERICA ON MARCH 2 anyway you can.  Read with a child.

If you are on Facebook, please become a friend of the Read Across America page and share your experiences.

I’m a teacher. I know what counts. And in the month of March, what counts – literally – is the Census.

If you work for a public school, college or university, and you’re tempted to surf away from this fabulous blog page on The Census since it doesn’t have anything to do with you, let me explain that there’s about $40 BILLION DOLLARS in EDUCATION FUNDING at stake with the The Census.

If you’re reading this, and you’ve got students – preschool to graduate school – you’ve got a stake in the Census.

Here’s why:

State and federal agencies (like the Department of Education) use Census figures to make decisions about Title One allocations, college loan programs, all kinds of school improvement grants and things that affect our communities like who gets money for roads and bus service. It affects how much states might get for health care for low-income children, Head Start and Special Education.

They use The Census to determine which states win or lose a seat in the House of Representatives. (Remember, these are the folks who determine so much about our professional and personal lives. Even if you don’t like yours, they count!)

It only comes around every ten years, so if it’s wrong, we don’t get a chance to make it right for ten more years.

Here’s the thing. In this era of concerns about privacy and too much information going who knows where, some of our students’ families (ok… some of us!) are going to hesitate putting down information about how many folks live in our households, our ethnic background and our level of education.

I’m filling out my form because I know how important it is to have an accurate count. I know what kind of security is being used to protect information. I know they need this count so they can tell how many kids are heading to public schools and colleges, and educators use that information so that we can advocate for their educational opportunities on the local, state and national level.

The National Education Association is a proud partner with The Census. We need each teacher, support professional, principal, superintendent and school board to be a partner, too. It’s up to all of us to help our students and their families understand what The Census is and why they should all participate.

The Census counts citizens and non-citizens. The information gathered cannot be used against anyone. It cannot be shared with any other agency. All Census Bureau employees are personally sworn for life to protect the confidentiality of all data and face personal prosecution, fine and imprisonment for any disclosure.

The Census reaches out to all. They have forms in Braille. They have information hotlines for the hearing impaired. And they are asking schools to help.

All schools in the country have been sent student and family packets on The Census. But “schools” ultimately means “you”.

This is the most fabulous civics lesson you could ask for – and it only comes around every ten years. Listed below are websites with age-appropriate lesson plans, frequently asked questions, ways you can reach out to parents, free stuff for your students on The Census.

The Census is as grassroots as it gets. It’s about our responsibility as participating members of this society. The Census is counting on us. And being part of The Census counts.

• NEA’s main Census page
  
• Main Census In Schools site
• Count down clock with current population estimate and Census 2010 video
• New college & university site, resource page for advocates
• Census quick start teaching guides, grades K-8 and 9-12
• Story book and coloring book
• Educator’s quick start for Census in Schools week
• Census 2010 Guide for families, including letter home in 28 languages
• Track the National vehicle and 12 regional Road Tour vans
• The whole story page answers most pressing concerns
• Media page with video, photos and audio

Ok.

He talked a lot about jobs.

She said, “Jobs? Give me hope about schools!”

White House Photo

I reminded her that he gave us a down-payment on his promise to make education a priority by not only including jobs protection in the first stimulus package a year ago, but actually earmarking some of those jobs fund to protect school jobs - 300,000 teachers, school secretaries and custodians didn’t get pink slips because of those federal dollars that went right to schools.

She said, “Oh yeah. But…”

I told her the President was proposing a new jobs bill moving that could save many more education jobs. That she should could call her Senator and her member of Congress and tell them what happens when a teacher is laid off.

See, they don’t lay off the kids.

The kids keep showing up, but with fewer teachers and support staff to serve them, so class size goes up. And class size matters to the personal attention a teacher can give a student (We both know this, because we taught across from each other the year we each had 39 5th graders.)

She said, “I’ll call. But give me hope we’ll get rid of the stupid testing stuff.”

I told her the President said two things that gave me hope: (1) We’re going to do things that work; and (2) We’re going to inspire kids.

Norm Lono

“Sounds like pretty words,” she said. We’ve heard pretty words before. Words like No. Child. Left. Behind. Pretty words can lead to some pretty stupid stuff.”

She’s right. But we can jump on this. We can take the President at his word. He said we were going to stop doing things that don’t work. We’ve got the facts on our side. We’re spending all our time measuring all the wrong things and it hurts kids when they don’t get what they really need. I’ve got hope that we’ve got a real chance to do things smarter.

Smarter is good. But the second word he gave us: Inspire.

He said we were going to inspire our students. He had me at “inspire”. My kids inspire me. I owe it to them to return that gift. Let me inspire! That would turn the Kids Are Just Test Scores stupidity on its head.

She said, “Where I teach these days, my kids need so much. Half my class is learning English. Half of them depend on the school for breakfast and lunch. They come back after high school to say hi to me. If they finish high school. A lot of them drop out. A lot of them don’t see a reason to finish. What kind of hope can I give them?”

We’re going to change the stupid stuff in No Child Left Behind. We’re going to inspire them to find their talents and pursue their potential. We’re going to make their education all about them and their lives and not about some standardized test. And we’re going to make it possible for their families to send them to college.

We’re going to strengthen our community colleges. We’re going to make higher education affordable for the kids who need them the most. The President said all that.

She reminded me, “It’s not going to happen tomorrow.”

No. It’s not. But we’re going to start tomorrow. Today. We have the chance to make things better. We have the chance to be pounding at the table and make our voices heard. We have the chance to end the stupid stuff and start the smart stuff. We have the chance to inspire. And we have someone who will be standing with us.

“Ok,” she said. “If that’s what he said, I’m in.”

He said it. He’s given us hope for what could be. Now we’re going to make it what it should be.

I’ve been indulging myself in nostalgia these days as it occurs to me that my first 4th graders turn forty this year. Coincidentally, I turn thirty-nine. Go figure.

I have all their pictures hanging on the wall. They are gorgeous ten-year olds and it is quite impossible that they have pot bellies and graying temples and children in college. They will always be ten.

Likewise, my experiences teaching in the suburbs of Salt Lake City are frozen. Like the blood drive my 6th graders organized complete with our press releases written in curly cursive with every word spelled correctly.

The Mountain Man Rendezvous with tall tales of buffalo hunts and music on animal skin and wood and bone. The medieval fair with fair maidens in cone hats and tattered humble peasants who had to wait on swaggering obnoxious knights and the discussions of how our republic, based on equal rights, differed from a feudal system based on inherited family privilege.

Paul and Mark Richards are brothers who work for Congress. Paul was one of my students at Orchard Elementary in 1982 when he was in 4th grade.

The Shakespeare plays my friend, Sue, produced with kids who never before had turned in a written assignment on time, but who turned in perfectly delivered lines of Hamlet on opening night, covered in inner torment, (her inner torment at rehearsals, covered in Tums).

I know it wasn’t all quaint Norman Rockwell calendar pages. But it was good stuff. We did some really very good stuff to make our lessons come to life for our babies. We taught. The parents thanked us. The principal supported us.

I didn’t know that would all come to an end in so many ways.

My friend with the Shakespeare plays told me a few months ago she didn’t want to be a teacher anymore. She said she had just left a faculty meeting where the principal had informed them that this year would focus only on The Bubble Kids.

I had to ask her, “What’s a Bubble Kid?”

They’re the kids who didn’t quite hit the cut score on the No Child Left tests the previous year. Or those that just barely hit it. The goal was to get off the Adequate Yearly Progress Shame List where her school had been placed because not enough of their students had hit the cut score.

The school has a high transient population of low-income immigrant families. I’ve been there. They are beautiful children. Many resettled from Southeast Asia where they were never permitted to attend school before. They want to learn.

But learning now is limited to hitting a cut score on a standardized test. There are no more Shakespeare plays. No blood drives. No pen pals. No school chorus. No art fair. No recess.

NEA Photo/Norman Lono

They eliminated anything that wasn’t on the test. Of course, that meant eliminating opportunities to learn teamwork on science fair projects and have open discussions where they could debate different points of view. Creative answers are punished on standardized tests. Wouldn’t want to handicap them with higher level thinking skills.

No. Time to take it to another level. Teachers and aides would be given special instruction in how to drill for the tests, special practice tests, scripted lessons that were purchased at great expense and specifically aligned to the test. And now a Bubble Kid strategy.

They were told not to “worry” about the high-scoring students. (They were bound to pass the tests.) Not to “worry” about the low-scoring students. (They might be able to make some progress toward the cut score, but hitting it would be a long shot, so it wouldn’t count.)

Studies on testing strategies showed it was most fruitful to concentrate all efforts on the precious little Bubble Kids. The low-hanging fruit.

I told her story to another friend who said, “We’re all being given the same lecture. My principal said the same thing to us.” He smiled at me and said, “But my principal added a little something.”

He told me that his principal had read the memo from the district office on Bubble Kids to the faculty. Then he put the paper down and said, “Ok, then. We’ll be giving the tests. We’ll do the best we can.”

“But I’ll be damned if we’ll let some test get in the way of us giving all our kids a good education.”

And so we will. We will all be damned if we – teachers, support staff, principals, superintendents, school boards, governors or presidents – let anything get in the way of giving every blessed child what he or she needs to be prepared to live the lives they deserve to live after they leave our schools.

I’ll be damned if I stop teaching.

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Photo by Norm Lono

I was put in charge of our school MLK observance.

During a faculty meeting, I ran down some suggestions I had for speakers, videos, book lists, etc.

I was on a roll with grade-appropriate ways for my elementary school, located in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, to help our students understand the importance of this man and the movement he lead in bringing the United States out of segregation and closer to its vision, that all of us are equal under the civil law and under the moral principles of humanity.

And I was ticking off ideas until one of our teachers innocently raised his hand, genuinely confused, and said, “Excuse me, Lily. I don’t get why we’re doing this. We don’t have any black students here.”

I was stunned and speechless (a thing my husband will confirm has happened perhaps three times in my life.)

But it was a fifth grade teacher who filled the silence, saying kindly, as if giving gentle instruction, “But see, that’s why it’s even more important that we do something. Otherwise, our kids might think Martin Luther King was a black hero instead of an American hero.”

Heads nodded in affirmation. It was those nodding heads that meant so much to me and continue to touch me to this day.

Slowly, slowly still we move. Slowly minds are opening. Eyes are seeing. We have come so far, and so part of the day is for celebration. We have so far to go until we arrive.

And so part of the day is for the movement that continues to need our attention. A movement that embraces the infinite possibilities of hope no matter the color of the skin; no matter what language is spoken; no matter where love is found; no matter where God is found.

Pero poco a poco. Little by little. The arc continues to bend toward justice. Reason enough to pause and reflect and be moved by a movement.

I know when I’m being set up.

But I also know when I’ve been given an opportunity. I’m a fairly noisy teacher, and I don’t get asked to formal things like this often (at least I don’t get asked twice.) Just as well. I find that distinguished people are very polite even when they disagree with you. This audience was very polite and listened quietly, taking notes. Something that can be painfully unnerving to a 6th grade teacher.

The forum sponsors sent me research papers in advance that dealt with lists of ways school districts could save pennies like turning down the thermostats or firing teachers or charging families bigger fees for sports or music or AP classes.

I was supposed to react to their suggestions and offer my own about how we could “tighten our belts” and “serve kids better.”

I get it. The economy stinks. People are losing their jobs. Businesses are closing. And that affects school funding. Taxes pay for schools and when folks are out of work, folks don’t pay income taxes. When houses are being devalued, it affects property taxes. When families have to cut back on their own spending, the sales taxes dry up.

I’m no ostrich. There’s not as much money as there used to be. But they (meaning everyone who isn’t me) usually start with the last question they should be asking: What should we starve?

And I’m not suggesting that we start with the polar opposite: What should we feed? Both questions beg another. The one we too often forget to ask before we get to the starving and the feeding…

What is the purpose of this meal?

What is the purpose we’re trying to achieve in a public school? As a Utah teacher, I can stretch a dollar until you can see through it. Our state legislature has achieved its purpose: Spend as little as possible on public schools.

We have the most kids stuffed into a classroom. We have the lowest number of administrators per student. We have no school nurses. No elementary librarians. My entire career – in good times and bad – I’ve seen too many decisions that were penny-wise and pound-foolish because they forgot to ask the first question first.

What is this purpose of this school? I’ve had to live with political decisions that one year put 39 5th graders in my classroom, making it hard to personalize instruction, hard to listen to kids, hard to engage their parents. That was the year I cried one afternoon sitting alone in my classroom, because I thought I was failing my purpose. (It’s the year I developed an involuntary reflex that causes me, to this very day, to slap people who calmly explain to me that class size doesn’t matter.)

It does.

It matters to whether or not I will be successful in achieving my purpose as a teacher.

My purpose, by the way, has always been clear: Prepare my students for the lives they want to live when they leave school. Give them the knowledge and skills and attitudes that will make them successful in their careers, in their personal lives and in their lives as participating members of society.

I want my kids to be ready for what comes next. If they want to go to technical school or barber college or Harvard, I want them to have the experiences and guidance and instruction and confidence that will get them where they want to go.

That’s my definition of purpose. Some people agree with me. Some people are wrong. Regardless, until you’re clear about purpose, debates about where to put pennies is premature and dangerous.

Educators are clear about where we need to go. We believe a school is the place where children are given what they need to make their dreams come true. I don’t think we are on this path alone. Several people came up to me afterwards and shook my hand. One gentleman said, “We needed to hear that.”

One woman said, “God bless you.”

We are not alone. We are not quiet. And we are not standing still. For all who believe with us, we are moving forward with purpose.

It is a heady thing to be asked to give your opinion. Into a microphone. With people taking notes. In seven minutes. Or less.

I am not a researcher. I am an excellent, professional, obviously humble 6th grade teacher from Utah. I have opinions on everything. And in this hearing room, with PhDs from Stanford and authors on best practices and researchers and statisticians, I had seven minutes to have folks understand, from the perspective of a practitioner, the opportunities and challenges and dangers of Closing the Achievement Gap between white children and children of other colors.

Would this audience understand we’re not talking about a test score? Would they understand that to define something as mind-blowingly complex as the achievement of a human-type child to a standardized test, you narrow what it means to teach and what it means to learn.

I was once on some talk show in Florida where a reporter said: Don’t you think you’re being a little hypocritical as a teacher being against tests.

I told that reporter, slowly and in simple words, “I’m a teacher. We invented tests. I gave lots of tests in my 6th grade. I gave essay tests and spelling tests and it counted if you put the comma in the right place. And you got a point if you gave me a good answer.”

But you got two points if you gave me a good question.

We had a science fair and the kids did experiments. Sometimes the experiments didn’t work. You still got extra points if you could explain to me WHY your science experiment didn’t work.

When my kids brought in a current event, if something moved them, I expected them to do something about it. Write to the Governor; send out a press release in their best cursive handwriting; hold a blood drive.

And all my kids – the Gifted and the Talented and the English Language Learners and the Disabled (and sometimes, by the way, it one kid who was a gifted and talented English language learner with a disability),…but all, all, all my kids fully participated as part of a team to design and execute a class project that had a real-world impact.

I told that reporter, “What kind of teacher would I be if I limited the experiences of my students so that I could maximize the time I spend drilling for the single, right answer on the standardized test?”

I would be the kind of teacher whose test scores would go through the roof. But I would no longer be a good teacher.

Focus on a test score gap shortchanges children. I wanted to talk about Achievement gaps. And I want us to do something radical about it.

We need a radical goal that moves beyond test scores. That moves even beyond graduation. The goal of a school system – preschool to 12th grade – must be to prepare every blessed child for higher education. Prepared for college: Community College – barber college – Harvard – the University of Utah.

Don’t even let it enter my mind that one of my kids might not graduate. Make me part of a system that prepares kids for what comes AFTER high school.

And let it all be based on the best research. Research shows that the most disadvantaged kids have an easier time in kindergarten when they’ve had a good, quality preschool with a trained Early Childhood Teacher. So the high school teachers are going to want to be sure their system includes that.

Research shows class size matters dramatically in early grades, and is essential for proper diagnostic assessment and individual learning designs that match a student’s learning style.

As students progress through the system, they need to develop the skills for the 21st century: Design, Analysis, Invention Communications, Creativity, Problem Solving, Organizing, Leadership, Team Work – skills that defy measurement by a one-size standardized test.

Start measuring the right things. Start setting the right goals. Start designing a system that works for all kids. But most importantly… start. Start.

Which means: I speak Spanish well enough to fool people who don’t speak Spanish.

I’m not a native speaker. My mother is from Panama, but never taught us to speak her first language. I’ve been taking lessons for years because I love my mother. And I’m scared of her.

She admitted that it was a mistake not teaching us, but she said it was up to me to fix it.

She said to me, “You’ve got brains! Stop blaming me and take a class!” You don’t say ‘No’ to Ma. So I’ve got a friend teaching me, and I’ve got grammar books, and I’ve got novels and radio shows and podcasts and the Betty La Fea telanovela on TV.

But it’s not just for Ma. It’s because I’m power-hungry. I’m worst than a mad scientist. I’m a sucker for a power grab. And language has power.

I suspected it in my 6th grade class when the neighborhood was beginning to change faces and change accents. I saw it when sitting next to Brian and Jason and Cindy were Alfredo and Marcos and Fabiola.

I used it when one day when the kids came in from recess and I said, “Bueno, estudiantes. Sientense en sus escritorios por favor. Ahora.” (Which was actually the sum total of the Spanish vocabulary I remembered from high school at the time.)

And Brian and Jason and Cindy looked up at me smiling as if I were playing a game. But Alfredo and Marcos and Fabiola looked up at me as if I had called them by name.

I said, “Fabiola, some people in our class don’t speak two languages. Can you tell them what I said?”

She said, “She wants you to sit down. Now.”

And Fabiola was smiling, unafraid of her power.

I had been told that the parents of Alfredo and Marcos spoke very little English. I had them help me to write a note home telling them how happy I was to have students who could help me with my Spanish! I told them, in Spanish, how excited I would be to meet them and thank them in person for sending me their children who would also be my teachers.

Those parents came to back to school night, and I’m sure I sounded like a two-year-old trying to hold up my end of the conversation, but they were so patient with me as I babbled in Spanglish. They helped me with a phrase. I helped them with a phrase. I said, “Somos un buen equipo.” We’re a good team.

We were. We didn’t understand everything we said to each other. But we understood what we were to each other. We understood what was important.

We understood that each of us had to reach toward the other like a team passing a ball. It was my job to show them in whatever small way that I could that I needed them.

It was my job to make them welcome and to make their children understand how special they were; as all my children were. This you can make clear through the power of the universal language of children and what we owe to them. This they understood.

Caring parents. Caring teachers. This is the language our children learn before all others.

I love practical, powerful people who make things happen. These are not always the people with the big title and who have the big office and the secretary. Sometimes they are the secretary.

When I taught at Orchard Elementary, we all tramped through the main office every morning to check our mailboxes before heading to our classrooms. Marge, the school secretary, had flowers on her desk one day. I said, “Is it your birthday?” She said, “No. A parent sent them. And I didn’t even do anything.”

Well, of course, she had. She told me that after she had locked the office doors the night before and had headed to her car in the parking lot, she noticed one of our kindergarteners leaning up against the building. The school yard was deserted. The little girl’s mother had never picked her up.

So Marge took her back into the school, unlocked the office, looked up the mother’s phone number and called. She found out there was a miscommunication at home. Mom thought Dad was doing the picking up. Dad thought Mom was. Mom was embarrassed and raced to school to collect her little girl whom she found sitting next to Marge in the office, the two of them patiently waiting and reading a story together.

So, says Marge, “I didn’t want to leave her alone outside. But it wasn’t even an hour before her mom came. I didn’t do anything, but wasn’t that nice of her to send flowers?”

Our school support staff love our kids. They have the biggest hearts and the most loving, quiet ways of showing how much they care. They never seek the spotlight. This is a mistake. We should give them the spotlight. Because they are so often the ones who know what’s going on behind the curtain, and we can learn so much from them.

Now, I’m a teacher. I stand in front of the stage. Lights! Camera! Action! The parents know me, and the kids take notes on what I say, and we go on fieldtrips, and we drill our times tables with games, and we write plays. It’s show time!

My friend, Rod, is a behind-the-scenes guy. He drives the bus for the profoundly disabled students who go to a very special school on his route. He straps them into the wheelchair lift. He’s the first smile they see after they say goodbye to their parents. He knows their stories like they were his own children.

North Kingstown, R.I. ESPs gather to speak with Education Secretary Arne Duncan

And Steve, the custodian, offered to take Jared, the new kid having some behavior “issues”, to the gym to get some of the ants out of his pants. I peeked in a few times. He asked Jared to help him sweep with the big broom. And then they shot a couple of hoops. And then he came back to class a little more settled and feeling pretty important. Feeling like he’d found a friend.

These are proud professionals. So I want to congratulate the guy with the big office and the big title, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, for doing what no other Secretary of Education has done before him. On his listening tour of America’s schools where he has gathered groups of teachers and groups of school board members and groups of administrators, he insisted on a special gathering of Education Support Professionals to hear what they had to say.

He pulled the seats up close to him, and listened – really listened – to the lunch lady who told him about her concerns of the nutritional needs of her kids in a world of devastating school budget cuts, and the maintenance technician who was a journeyman plumber who knew what those buildings needed to prevent big repairs later on, and teacher’s aide who worked with at-risk teenagers who told the Secretary about one of her students who was on the verge of dropping out. This kid told her, “I come to school every day so you can smile at me.”

These are quiet heroes who often don’t even make a living wage. And yet they are a powerful force in the lives of so many students who depend on their caring hands and their caring hearts.

I love being around people who know how to use power. It’s why I loved the honor of just being in the room with Secretary Duncan as he listened to some of the most powerful people I know.

Ever wonder what a day without education support professionals would look like? Check out this video:

I guess it takes one wise Latina to balance out the guys.

Regardless, I’ve just returned from taping a panel discussion, hosted by one of my favorite reporters, Ray Suarez, for a show called Destination Casa Blanca – Destination White House.

The show addresses political issues of importance to the Latino community, and arguably one of the most vital issues is education. The panel had a researcher, a civil rights advocate, a private school voucher advocate, Ray and me.

The topic was early childhood education and whether or not it mattered to the success of low-income Hispanic children.

Well, yes, I said. It does. The researcher said, yes it does. The civil rights advocate said, yes it does. The private school voucher advocate said, well, if it does, it doesn’t last so, no. It doesn’t.

That’s when the debate began.

I find there is an irresistible attachment to the simple. The voucher man quoted research that said that, yes, readiness skills for school and even access to health and nutrition programs greatly improved with Head Start, and that children who had had at least two years of a full-day program were on a par with their peers entering kindergarten, thanks to early childhood education.

But by the third grade, they were again behind. Ipso facto, Head Start doesn’t work and is a waste of money.

What poor parents need is not a public program like Head Start or even a public program like a good public school. What poor parents need is a voucher so they can choose a nice private school where all will be well.

And if it isn’t, they can just choose another nice private school. Or another. Until they find one they like. Markets are bound to meet the demand of low-income, immigrant communities. Simple. Case closed.

Video: With Lily behind the scenes! (this is what you won’t see on tv)

But I was the woman who had taught eensy beensy spider to low-income 4 year olds.  So case not so closed.

First, the gap referred to is always a simple standardized test score gap. I will never concede a standardized test score to be more than it is: One rather weak line of evidence of student achievement. But I gave the voucher man that point because it was, after all, only a one hour program with commercials.

Everyone at the table, including the voucher man, agreed that Head Start worked to prepare disadvantaged kids with the skills they needed to be successful beginning school. If in the next four years the gaps between them and their classmates grew, shouldn’t we be looking at what’s happening in those primary grades?

What types of supports and focus and training allowed the Head Start teachers to be so successful? Are our class sizes in primary grades what they should be to support individualized instruction? Do we have programs in primary grades that involve parents in helping their students at home? Do we have bilingual teachers’ assistants where they are needed?

Do low-income schools have needed health and nutrition programs that were designed into Head Start programs? Are our teachers given the specialized training in English language acquisition and cultural competence to understand and support the whole blessed child in our increasingly diverse communities?

To the voucher man, all this was too complicated. We don’t need no stinkin’ programs. Give the parents a voucher. Wish them well. Someone out there will come up with something. Someday. Someone out there will choose them. Simple.

And simply wrong. Early childhood education works. We must build on what works. What works are well-prepared teachers and support professionals (You can start your search for on-line professional development at the NEA Academy). What works is involving the parents.

What works is looking for multiple lines of evidence of success so that children aren’t labeled unfairly and inaccurately by test scores. What works is an appropriate class size.

What works is bringing the school community together to decide what they want for their children. And then making it happen. Demanding that it happen.

It’s hard. It’s complicated. There are no silver bullets to shoot at these problems.

There is no template guaranteed money-back formula for success. It’s work. And it’s messy. And good people can debate on what to tackle first and what models fit what communities and how to get from good to great. But there is no debate on one point: It matters.