Dennis Danziger speaks up for all the teachers who have to do more than teach—they have to address a failed social system.
My plan was to become a teacher, but after teaching for twenty years in the Los Angeles Unified School District I realized I’m not so much of a teacher anymore as I am a lobbyist for the poor.
For the kids who hide their faces deep inside their hoodies.
The ones who walk in packs. The ones you cross the street to avoid.
The ones who are amounting to nothing.
Who are pissing away our taxpayer dollars.
Who are dropping out, getting high, getting pregnant, fucking up.
Even though many of them are smart and talented and have huge potential and want to learn.
These are the kids I teach; the kids I love teaching and know how to teach.
I am a counselor to their parents, who mow our lawns, bus our tables, burp our babies, haul our trash, and dream of a brighter future for their children.
I am the deliverer of bad news. The one who informs these parents that their sacrifices are in vain, that their kids are too far behind to catch up or to compete for meaningful jobs.
That the educational system, that these parents trusted, has practically guaranteed all that failure with 40 to a class and cuts in vocational classes that could be the ladders from poverty to a meaningful career.
I am a voice for 3.2 million public school teachers and hundreds of thousands of public school employees who go to sleep every night not knowing if they’ll have a job come morning.
Who don’t understand why America suddenly hates them.
Who lack the energy to fight back (except for the Chicago Teachers Union).
Who feel defenseless, powerless, depressed, disrespected, and scared.
I am a teacher whose students are currently studying at Vassar, Wellesley, Sarah Lawrence, UCLA, UC-Berkeley, Kenyon and Bard.
I am a teacher whose students are currently serving 15- and 22-year prison sentences for armed robbery and attempted murder.
I am a teacher whose cholos and working class whites have consistently outperformed students from all over LA, including those in North Hollywood Genius Magnet.
I am a teacher who has buried two of his favorite students before they turned 17.
I am a teacher who has taught in one of the wealthiest zip codes in America and one of the most dangerous zip codes in America and has yet to meet a student who did not want to learn.
I am a teacher who has taught at a suburban charter school where teachers and administrators ruthlessly gamed the system for their financial advantage the moment they controlled their own budget.
And I am a teacher who has taught in regular public schools that are being gamed by members of the Forbes 500 who are sucking billions of dollars out of public education and condemning the children of the working class and poor to lives of economic slavery, so that the super-rich who sell computers and computer programs can grow even richer.
I am a teacher who is watching the deliberate end of public education to those at the bottom of our economic pyramid. Who is watching while our country deliberately closes the paths, the escape routes out of poverty.
Let’s be honest: what could be more wasteful than throwing away millions of young lives whose biggest crime was to have been born in the wrong neighborhood without giving them a legitimate shot at success?
And what could be more expensive than to have to take care of those millions of kids from cradle to grave?
I am witnessing the end of public education in America for the have-nots.
What do we, as a nation, think is going to happen when so many of America’s youth grow up and realize that there is no hope, no escape from their present circumstances and that the promise of the American Dream never applied to them?
I don’t know the answer.
But I know it’s terribly unfair, deliberately cruel, and no good will come of how America with the backing of our current administration is privatizing public school so that those who were born poor will likely remain poor forever.
I thought we were a better people than that. Â Better women and better men.
Photo—goat’s greetings/Flickr
Hey Dennis ~ from one trench to another, one heart to another, one light to another, peace to you my brother. Thank you.
Lori, I can’t even begin to express how good your words made me feel when I read them. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this blog and then to write. It is greatly appreciated. And back at you.
what do you mean by ‘privatization’? Charters? Because lots of charters do an amazing job of educating people in poor urban neighborhoods. And the one my sister founded is one of them. She believes like you that kids need a great education no matter where they live. Now she helps struggling and ‘failing’ urban schools do better by their students. The bureaucracy of education is partly the problem. That teachers like you dont get the salary and resources needed is another. I say take the bureaucracy out of the way and let teachers and students get on with the business… Read more »
Hi Ruth, Here an article that explains a lot. Good schools that become charters stay good; while mediocre or bad schools remain bad. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/31/charter-schools-stanford-report_n_2586231.html Re: privatization, just ask yourself who is push this reform. A number of billionaires and ask yourself why? Since their children aren’t attending public schools charter or otherwise. Thanks for replying.
Hey Dennis — That’s strong stuff. I completely agree with you — especially the part about never having met a student who didn’t want to learn. I myself have never encountered a kid who didn’t want a check-mark on his paper. Thanks for giving me the chance to read this.
Hey Mark, And isn’t it odd how one never hears about such things? That all kids want to learn. Mostly we hear the opposite. And we hear it over and over and over.
We live in different worlds. You write “While one worked, the aunt watched the kids.” Now, the aunt is also working. There’s no one home when most of my students arrive home from school. Maybe an older sister. Who’s 16. And a lot of my students’s parents can’t afford the Internet. Lots of them can’t. And I think the vast majority of the parents do care, deeply, but they can’t miss work in the middle of the day for a conference. Its costs them too much money. And maybe their job. And I agree, Head Start and mandatory pre-school are… Read more »
Are you still at Venice High School? I find it amazing that the school is so different from it’s feeder elementary schools and junior highs where some of the schools are very high achieving. I understand parents can’t always get to school functions but I know schools who try and accommodate the parents schedules and still no one shows up. I really would love to know the percentage of both parents working in a two family household and how many are working in one women/or men households only. What is the % in your school of kids that have cellphones?… Read more »
I disagree Dennis as to why those kids above did so well. They had parents who cared and while one worked the aunt watched the kids. Also, they were expected to do well by their parents and teachers. Today, sometimes neither care or push their kids to excel. I don’t get it. I don’t think money or affluence has that much to do with it. I think the parents need to feel it is important. They need to make sure the kids (from preschool on) take education seriously.. They need to demand to see completed homework, they need to make… Read more »
I commend you for your efforts and understand your frustration. Having worked with inner city kids in a residential setting for 15 years now, I too have experienced losses. But I have a question for you and it relates to a personal experience. My wife and brother-in law grew up in a family of migrant workers. My wife remembers as a child, going from farm to farm, playing in fields as family members worked in the fields. When they permanently moved to Chicago, their mother got a factory job. The aunt stayed home and watched them while mom worked long… Read more »
Hi Tom, Thanks for writing. It’s an amazing story. The question is why did your wife and brother-in-law rise above the environment while others didn’t? A good question. And I think the answer is quite frankly, your wife and brother-in-law are in some ways exceptional, extraordinary people. The vast majority of us are not. Those your describe are the 1 in a 1,000 or the 1 in 10,000. But most of us are not in that category.