Ann Evans de Bernard is retiring as principal of a Bridgeport, Connecticut, K-8 school. She decided it was time to tell the truth about urban education.
She explained that rises and falls on average test scores mean nothing because of the high mobility rate of her students. They move in and move out with stunning frequency. What do the scores mean? Nothing.
The kids persevere despite many obstacles. Yes, being poor makes life very hard for them and their families.
And she wonders: what if we could overcome all those obstacles; what if our children were really well prepared? Would those corporate leaders, who love to bash the schools, have good jobs for those well-educated youngsters?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
God bless her for her truthfulness!
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I actually did some tutoring for 8th grade math students in Ms. de Bernard’s building. My contact with her was minimal but she hits the mark about urban education.
And yes, where are, or will be, the livable wage jobs?
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I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A DESK. I left my homework home, because my home was a mess. I ahared a bedroom with 3 younger brothers. We had two sets of bunk beds. We shared a five foot long closet and each had ONE drawer. We ate what we were given or there was no food. If I went to school today, I would be a drop out. I can’t stand being treated like Pavlov’s dog. And I could touch the chainlink fence to H-! with my hand. Ever go to bed with soot and the souds from a highway? Ever have soot everywhere in the place you live? Ever have the on and off ramp right by where you live? HORRORS is all I can say.
I made it,because I was not compliant and my father taught me to question everything. He knew the world in which I would live and he knew it would not be easy being a woman of color without a large frame. I have been asked:
1. Can you speak English?
2. Do you know American History?
3. What do you think of the United States when you moved here from Hawai’i?
4. Did you live in a grass shack?
5. What race are you? Do you believe in all that Hawaiian stuff?
I know more than most living on the mainland. I came from a rich culture that values diversity.
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I teach in Hartford, CT. Some of my students live in cars! While we have to deal with the c**p being spewed out by the reformers in power here, I have routinely bought food for my student’s families to help my students learn. I couldn’t imagine living the lives many of them have to live.
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What gets me is that it seems to be that too many times it’s the RETIRED people who speak out. She didn’t have the COURAGE to say something when she was getting a paycheck. In fact, she was PART OF THE PROBLEM by not stepping up to the plate and saying that the emperor has no clothes.
I’m being harsh, but it needs to be said. Give her kudos for speaking up when she has nothing to lose?
Many more CURRENTLY WORKING people need to have the COURAGE to speak out. This is especially true of district and state educational leaders. It gets me when I see people give us these inservice classes going on and on and I know they know it’s hogwash. But they do it anyway.
I know. I do. I do now, I did in the past. I will in the future.
Cy-Fair ISD outside of Houston: The last day of school in the spring of 2005 I was called on the carpet by the principal and with an AP and the superintendent of personnel for the district, was told that I was on a growth plan because I was vocal about how the administration was using test scores to bull the faculty. That I had received TOP evals that year seemed to be irrelevant. I moved to the Northeast that summer and was given a few year’s respite before the Borg of testing hit up here.
When I teach kids about totalitarian regimes, I use our educational system as an example of who so many people just do what they’re told knowing about the elephant in the room.
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DET,
Beat me to the punch about the “go along to get along” crowd who do not speak out about all the educational malpractices they institute! Thanks!
The banality of evil is what you describe!
Duane
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My method of going against the grain in the inner city was get in/get out.
I circumvented the “publicity office” of KCMO schools and got my students on public radio (with a black cowboy program) and got them in the newspaper. I was reprimanded by the district office with a phone call, but the radio broadcast and news clip (with photo) made a lot of black and Hispanic mamas very happy to hear their children on the radio and see their children doing something positive in the paper. Then I left ( I moved). But I wanted neither heroic praise from those communities nor to be on a watch list by the district. But I had nothing to lose career-wise (I knew I was moving).
It takes courage if you are afraid you will lose your livelihood or don’t want attention–especially the way our media is. I am glad she spoke up even if she is retiring.
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Where is your Union? You cannot be placed on the growth plan for exercising your right to free speech! You can win that one. And, I LOVE your term of the “Borg of testing . . .”!
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Union? It was Texas. A “right to work” state.
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Dinosaur,
If Bridgeport is anything like LAUSD, she would have been fired for speaking out.
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I am appalled by the tenor of this comment. Ann de Bernard has dedicated her life to school children in Bridgeport. I do not know her personally but I had the privilege of meeting her and talking to her recently. Before I say anything else–she is not yet retired! She is and has been speaking up all along, but, more importantly, she has been mentoring teachers and educating children throughout her career. Principal De Bernard could hardly have spoken against Paul Vallas before he arrived in Bridgeport. Many of the worst aspects of this devastating school reform regime (and yes, it aspires to totalitarianism) have only recently come together in an all-out assault on public education.
A greater tragedy is the continued racism of this country that allows people in “safe” and “good” school districts to convince themselves that they are nice people despite their capitulation to white flight and their unacknowledged prejudices.
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I would be very careful when characterizing all suburban white people as racists. As with all things, sweeping generalizations are probably incorrect, indicating one’s own biases and prejudices. I am white; I marched with Martin Luther King’s organization in 1968. I teach in an urban environment. Am I racist? No. But, I live in a suburban neighborhood.
I have been trying for over a year to generate a movement of civil disobedience against the reformers and have been quite vocal. But, I am still a teacher who has no plans for retiring anytime soon. I wish others would join me; to date, I have about ten people. Many teachers argue that they have jobs and can’t afford to be fired for speaking out. I argue that Heaven will not help the district that tries. Any that do would be opening themselves up to the possibility of a huge lawsuit.
As Franklin Roosevelt once said, “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” If we teachers continue to cringe in the background and allow the reformers, who are highly organized, to intimidate us, we will lose. Look at what is happening in CT with the Vallas situation; the state and the city of Bridgeport are getting away with using taxpayers’ monies to pay for his court fees, and his attorneys have apparently co-opted the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. They freely conduct ex-parte communications with him. This means that they are beginning to buy out the courts. We must begin fighting back.
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Clearly you didn’t google my name before you wrote you comments or you might have find out how many times I have spoken out and written about these issues at my own peril while I was collecting my check. And just as clearly, you didn’t read my article in Education Week last year which ended ironically with the words “the emperor has no clothes.” Before you write about people you don’t know, perhaps you should do your homework. Ann Evans de Bernard
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I did read your article. You started with, “As I wind up my career as a principal in Bridgeport…” Was I supposed to have read an article in Education Week last year? I did read Diane’s comment and I did read the article on her hyperlink. I went by that information. Great article, by the way. I still stand by my statement. You were PART OF THE PROBLEM. Diane states, “Ann Evans de Bernard is retiring as principal of a Bridgeport, Connecticut, K-8 school. She decided it was time to tell the truth about urban education.” No, the time has passed. As a retired educational leader, you have a say, but your say would have held much more weight had you said it before you let these ed reform nihilists dismantle your district.
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I take it you don’t read the Connecticut Post or Education Week (subscription required).
http://www.ctpost.com/schools/article/Supporters-back-principal-in-grading-flap-648848.php
Just a suggestion – doing your research is mandatory, (so as not to appear uneducated).
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Teachers rely on their jobs, are raising families and cannot always speak out if the rest of their colleagues are willing to sit silently and not take a stand. I was an outspoken teacher and got nothing but disrespect by means of no advancement despite my education, excellent classroom performance and rapport with staff and parent. I watched in horror while less qualified, younger colleagues were promoted to the jobs that I was more than qualified to perform. I worked in New Haven, CT, which was infamous for promoting those who kissed the butts of those at the tops. For those of us who shared differences of philosophies and spoke openly we were punished with involuntary transfers and poor evals. I finally retired, earlier than intended, and tutor children on my own terms. I wish I could have achieved my dreams of advancement in my district but now understand that I have to let those dreams go and make new ones.
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Alicort: your nightmare is everything that the edubullies desire.
I noticed in some of my jobs—blue- and white-collar, different cities, profit and non-profit—that the more that management is not held accountable and responsible for doing a good job, the more that incompetents rise to higher and higher levels of management, the ticket to greater pay and less work being the ability to “kiss up and kick down.”
When those running the show create powerful incentives to bring out the worst in people—it is not surprising that they create just the situation you describe.
One advantage to the path you chose: you can look yourself in the mirror and not feel ashamed of the person looking back at you.
Thank you for all your efforts.
🙂
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I see possible lawsuits here . . .!
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It is often the same in poorer rural districts where families break, blend, move…kids end up with grandparents, aunts, uncles…and addresses tend to change when rent is due or pressure to participate in serving the student needs becomes a bone of contention. Difficulties can be generational, and teachers who taught the grandparent can end up teaching the grandchild who has moved in with them. Urban, rural or in between, when I am faced with a third grader whose father dragged him out late to find his drunken cheating lady friend the night before, my priority won’t be bubbles and number two pencils or 90 minutes of silence. When faced with a girl whose single father ships her off to her “no good mother’s” while he moves in his latest girlfriend and her son, then back after he kicks them out…again, priorities. There is a blatant unwillingness to admit the value of teachers and what “in loco parentis” has come to mean in poorer schools.
Will dismantling public schools and giving the families I just described the magical waiting-for-superman choice cue the clouds parting drama shot to reveal student success and Michelle Rhee perched on a mountain of the fired teacher bodies that created the success?
No. Everyone knows it won’t. But for the folks pushing the “blame unions/schools/teachers” point of view, what is really needed calls for truly shared sacrifice and hard work, not just scapegoating and squeezing.
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A teacher’s ability to speak out depends on many factors. As Bill Morrison pointed out, a strong union can help, but not every district has one. Having some financial security helps as well, but teachers generally don’t have the same resources as, say, hedge fund managers.
I feel we have to understand that many teachers live in precarious circumstances and are afraid to rock the boat. I can’t find it in my heart to be overly judgmental of my colleagues who are supporting their aging parents or trying to plan for the life-long care of a child with a profound disability or trying to stay afloat after a spouse loses his/her job.
On the other hand, we can all do SOMETHING: Ask those uncomfortable questions, point out inconsistencies and request clarification, ask for evidence, follow political developments, know the research, and find like-minded people to plan strategy. Those that can do more, should do more.
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Sometimes my 8th grade Hispanic students in Kansas City missed school to go to job interviews with their patents (to translate).
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Parents
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I smell Jon Pelto behind this – and if so, thanks, buddy!
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“And she wonders: what if we could overcome all those obstacles; what if our children were really well prepared? Would those corporate leaders, who love to bash the schools, have good jobs for those well-educated youngsters?”
Simple answer is no. Corporate American is moving white collar jobs out of the US just as fast as they can. IBM is an example – it’s plan is to reduce the US workforce by 135,000 employees by 2015. So well paying jobs for well educated folks is looking mythological to me.
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one of the best things I have read lately– and there’s a lot of good being written– this one needs to be spread far and wide– to every politician running and hustling . . . bravo Principal de Bernard
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Unfortunately, there are a lot of tattletale teachers or spies that will turn teachers in just to save themselves if anyone speaks out. This privatization program has brought out some very ugly behaviors in the adults. I do not see teachers uniting and this could be to their own demise.
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Now you know why we worked so hard to have the 1997 Audit and why 15 years later it is so funny to me as Director of Policy for the Congress of Racial Equality of California (CORE-CA) to be able to use it in an Amicus Brief on just this type of issue before the California State Supreme Court. We are hoping that this case will be first heard and second won. When a case of retribution is won at this level it has implications broader than California. CORE-CA works tirelessly for the citizens and communities especially those who are disadvantaged. This must stop. Our youth and those who educate them deserve better.
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