Open Letter to Uppity Urban Charter Schools or Numbers on a Page

Dear Uppity Urban Charter Schools,

It has come to my attention that most of you will not give me or my resume the time of day because you have insanely high standards for both your students and your faculty. This is wonderful, but disingenuous at best. Allow me to explain.

The State of New Jersey requires its teachers to have a 2.75 GPA in order to be certified by the state. I am certified by the state. My GPA as an undergrad was a 2.75. Most of you require your teachers to have a 3.0 GPA as an undergrad. Therefore, though I am qualified to teach and state certified, you people deem me sub par because of my undergrad GPA. Because of the numbers on a page.

Those numbers, my dear would be constituents, lack context. Those numbers do not tell you how much adversity I had to overcome to get that GPA and graduate from college. They don't tell you that I worked three jobs to keep myself in school. They don't tell you how my dad left; gave up and walked out years ago for sheer lack of interest. They don't tell you how my mother struggles with mental illness and that she had a nervous breakdown and moved across the country to get better. She left me in my dorm room with all of my worldly possessions. The rest of the stuff was tossed when we got evicted from the apartment, a step down from the house that we lost due to foreclosure. Foreclosure that came when my mom stopped fighting. When the reality of being followed, trailed and watched by the police because of my brother's drug peddling became too much. When the memory of having our house raided by police was too dark, when the funds to keep bailing my brother out of jail drained her of the energy to do simple tasks like get out of bed.

I could go on, but you have proven that you aren't interested in the reasons why my GPA as an undergrad was just average. You also don't seem to care that my GPA in graduate school was a 3.5. None of this is interesting to you because you are fixated on the numbers on my 10 page transcript featuring my name and social security number.

So, fine. Hire the Teach for America kids whose only knowledge about poverty is theoretical. Teach for America, like you Uppity Urban Charter Schools, only selects the best of the best from Ivy league or Ivy-league wannabe colleges and universities. TFA kids have no clue what they are signing up for when they apply. I also applied to Teach for America, buy the way. They didn't want me. Probably because of my GPA.

My knowledge of poverty and struggle is very real. I have lived it. As a matter of fact, I have lived below the poverty line my entire life. I'll be 25 on Sunday. These are obstacles I overcame to become the person I am today. I understand FIRST HAND what these kids are going through. I didn't learn about their situations from a book or in a teacher prep class. Their story is my story. That one of the reasons I became an educator in the first place. I knew I could be an example for some kid who was feeling hopeless because of his or her circumstance. I felt this way once and I had teachers who helped me through it.

This is not, however, the chance you are willing to afford me because of my undergraduate GPA. Have fun finding someone who is willing to tirelessly devote all of their love and energy to your students and their education with no interest in how it looks on their resume for future job prospects.


Sincerely,

Nina J Davidson

City High Anthem

This post was inspired by a song I have heard dozens of times. The song is called "City High Anthem." The artist, City High, is/was composed of three twenty somethings, all of which were born and raised in Willingboro, NJ. I was also born and raised in Willingboro, NJ.

The group gained some notoriety from their song 'What Would You Do?' but the aforementioned song off their self-titled album is what made me write this post.

The song talks about their collective disappointment over teachers in their public school. As a resident of the town, I was never allowed to entertain the notion of attending any school in the district beyond grade school. The middle school is INFAMOUS and the high school's reputation is less than stellar. I attended private school for middle and a vocational school for high school.

"City High Anthem" is heartbreaking to me as a teacher and as someone who "should have" attended school there. It begins, "They just gave up on our entire generation / So we were all pushed to the side cuz we didn't see the world through our teachers eyes /When all we needed was a little bit of motivation, But because we wore our pants saggin' y'all labeled us gangstas And said we wasn't worth the time."

I have met students, parents and other people in education that admit they know teachers who hate students. You may think this is an oxymoron because it is. Still, a lot of people teach because of the job security and the schedule. I think this is incredibly selfish and damaging because students know you don't care about them.

It continues,
There are so many things I never asked you /There are so many things I still don't know /There are so many things you never told me /And still so many things that I will never know /and why, cuz I went to City High

In college, I went to school with a girl who graduated from the school. The transition from high school to college was incredibly difficult because as a college freshman, she was reading at a 9th grade level. I suppose this is the basis for the NCLB Act, but the school has very little change.

A school with more drop outs than sign-ups at registration
And the pregnancy rate is at an all-time high, we all know why
Now you would think the classroom's the place for mental stimulation
But it's some brothers outside sellin' that stuff, that'll really stimulate your mind, (talk about gettin' high)


I know a woman who works at the high school. She was in tears the day she walked into her classroom. She was hired at the last minute and when she walked in to her room, there were no chairs, no desks, no books. Nothing. She called her father who was able to find her supplies so her students would at least have a place to sit on the first day of school.

I can completely understand their frustration,
So, We don't need your education /We don't want no pacifier/We are the leaders of your nation/We're gonna make sure the world survives /There ain't no justice there's just us /What happened to the meaning of 'in God we trust'/So as we get older and our children grow up /We ain't gonna teach them what y'all showed us

Teachers play an integral role in the development of our future leaders. I play an integral role in the development of our future leaders. I have a soft spot in my heart for at-risk youth because I should have been one.

All at risk students need someone who cares. Someone that really wants to help. If not, they are left feeling neglected and abandoned all over again. And there were so many things that needed explaining /But you said it was too late for me to learn /You were suppose to be my shelter when it was rainin'/But instead you left me out here all alone, so I gotta make it on my own


Teaching is too important to be taken lightly. It is not something you do for convenience or as a stop over. You teach, I teach because I know I can, and do, make a positive difference in the lives of the future of our country. I don't want my kids to ever have to write something like this because I didn't care enough about them.

For people who did believe what we could do to change our future: You knew the world was in our hands. Help build them strong so they can withstand all the pressures, all the war, all the prejudice. And the others who were sure we couldn't fight the stress in life, for those of you who didn't believe us: Listen to my words for you. Listen to your children sing to you--

We don't need your education
We don't want no pacifier
We are the leaders of your nation
We're gonna make sure the world survives
There ain't no justice there's just us
What happened to the meaning of "in God we trust"
So as we get older and our children grow up
We ain't gonna teach them what y'all showed us




Hear the song here.