Two months earlier I had given birth to our second daughter Naima and my obsession over Imani and her future academic achievement went into overdrive. I'd always been interested in education and as we live in the inner city where our overwhelmed public school system leaves much to be desired, I had spent a great deal of time in debates with friends in and out of the city about what it would take to bring our schools up to par. One thing that was clear to me is that middle class folks in Trenton had totally opted out of the public schools. The school board isn't elected, rather it's appointed by the mayor and even the school board members sent their kids to private schools. I had debated friends on this point who, missing my point, argued that the schools were bad and of that's why even school board members didn't send their kids there. My point was to make the schools better we needed to have school board members with "skin in the game" which to me means school board members who had kids in the system.
In the process of thinking about the Trenton schools I developed another theory: an infusion of middle class kids would make the schools better and decided that I had a mission; I would send my kids to the public schools and I would recruit others in our socioeconomic class to do the same and our group of invested stakeholders would work to turn the schools around. Imani was probably a year old at the time. My role model mom and friend Deesha Philyaw, a professor, blogger and freelance writer who has written for Essence magazine and the Washington Post among others, and who is seriously one of the brightest, most well-adjusted people I know, heard me out, told me my goals were laudable and then suggested that I read Natalie Hopkinson's column in the Washington Post entitled "The Hip-Hop Generation, Raising Up Its Sons". Though I have a few years on the author (I was born in 1969 to her mid-70s), our stories about how we came to live where we do (Washington, DC for Hopkinson and her husband, Trenton, NJ for me and mine) were similar as were/are our goals for our communities.
"Unlike our parents, who chose mostly white, suburban districts with top notch school systems, Rudy and I wanted to live in a black community in the Chocolate City...we admittedly had a lot of romantic notions about being role models and helping a city rebound."
Ultimately, she writes, "three years later, our lofty goals became a casualty of busy work schedules. We didn't have the time to overhaul a school!" and she and her husband opt for their son a public school in a better area when her former high school principal later advises
"You never get a chance to do this but one time. This is your chance," he said. "You have the means to give him the best, whether that's in a school that is public or private. You've got to send him to a place that's ready for him. You've gotta find places that believe that he can be a Master of the Universe. If you are lucky enough to live in a community where you don't have to pay for that, good for you. If not, make that investment, it will pay you right back. You cannot feel guilty. You are not selling out. That's the American way."
But this article isn't what lead to the panic attack I alluded to earlier. No, despite the appeals from two of my girlfriends, who are also Imani's co-Godmothers, I was still pretty determined to send her to public school. But then there were scandals in our local school system: a number of children were unnecessarily held back a grade and then when they complained were told "don't worry we'll put them in their proper grade next year" as if the grade they missed didn't matter and more importantly I found out that our school system wasn't in compliance with the state mandate on Gifted and Talented Education (GTE) programs. And then there were those studies on the achievement gap. Before delving into reading in this area I had assumed this was a phenomenon exclusive to lower income African Americans. In reality the achievement gap also persists in the suburbs among students from middle class and upper middle class families as well. And so current events and this data along with the birth of a second child put me in panic mode.
Imani was admitted to that suburban private school's Junior Kindergarten but she won't be going there. Nor will she continue in the Montessori-style mixed-age program we moved her to here in Trenton last year (from a suburban Y program with tuition that rivals private Montessori schools which we had put her in for "socialization"). Next next month Imani will be attending a publicly-funded Abbott Pre-School program in Trenton located in the same place as the Montessori-style program she has been in since November. Some of my friends (and some family who were also not in favor of the class move) will learn this for the very first time by reading my blog but please friends and fam know that I do believe it will be ok. The fact is that we cannot (and shouldn't) rely on schools, whether they are public or private, to be solely responsible for our daughter's development. Last year we began using the What Your Preschooler Needs to Know read-aloud book and accompanying activity workbooks. We've been diligently adding classic children's books to her library and I'm constantly gathering reading lists (enough to merit its own blog post) for more to check out from the public library (and we even pay for access to a suburban public library system's for greater options). A few months ago I purchased the Pre-K Scholars education kit and will be doing that with Imani starting next month. Additionally, our regular trips to our Fernbrook Farms CSA give Imani an opportunity to learn (in a fun way) about agriculture and that produce is grown, not just picked up at the grocery store.
So, who knows what will happen. She will most certainly be in a class with more "disadvantaged"children and that's ok. As Carey Berwick (a writer who is Jersey City resident and mother of an Abbott preschooler) pointed out in her article "E for Equity: Inside New Jersey’s Education Debate" for urban affairs magazine The Next American City, Abbott preschool classes are better when the children come from a mix of socioeconomic classes, confirming my long-held theory about public schools in general. Also, Imani is ahead of her peers (something confirmed by her private school screening) and being in a class of mixed-levels is also something that could benefit both Imani and her classmates. This is an important part of the Montessori-style of teaching which believes that in mixed-age classes the older (and in this case, more advanced) children get to be mentors for their peers while encouraging the older child's mastery of the school work. This theory was unintentionally put to the test on the high school level by medieval literature teacher Line Marshall. In "Racial Achievement Gap Still Plagues Schools", National Public Radio reported that a scheduling mistake put students tracked on different levels in the same class. The mistake elevated the work of the lower level students, says Marshall:
"I saw in the kids who wanted the opportunity a light open up. The kids who had been used to, I guess, doing very basic work, whose English classes for whatever reason hadn't been challenging, would come up to me and say, we've just never thought this way before. No one's ever asked us these questions before."Again, who knows what will happen. I may move her from the free Abbott classes back to the "community room" but I know that she's already doing Kindergarten level work and she just turned four years old yesterday. We just need to continue to respond to her need for stimulation; she loves the pre-K and Kindergarten activity books we get from the dollar stores. Earlier this year I asked her if they do such activities at school. "No," she said, "We don't have activities, we just have games".
Imani continues to fascinate me with what she picks up outside of the formal school environment and because of that I think she will be ok in the free Abbott pre-school...I think.
