"You know very well who you are
Don’t let ‘em hold you down
Reach for the stars"
—Notorious BIG
When I first decided to become a teacher, I was a junior at Rutgers University. I remember realizing how transformational an education can be for a young person. I was studying the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the Soweto Uprising in South Africa. The bravery and the youth of the activists in both movements floored me. These were school-aged children and young adults putting their lives on the line — Black people and white people — to secure equal rights for Black people.
I entered college wanting to become an attorney.
I wanted to combat mass incarceration of people of color.
I wanted to support children who found themselves enmeshed in a criminal justice system, with no way out.
I soon realized after delving deep into American history, political science, and Afro American studies, and tutoring 4th and 5th graders in my after-school program in New Brunswick, that I’d rather get to children before they ever got enmeshed in a criminal justice system badly in need of reform. I wanted to educate them. My goal was that they would be equipped to go after their own version of the American dream.
I didn’t want any child to feel trapped in a world of poverty, nihilism, or violence. I wanted them to have every opportunity to not only have a seat at the table but to have voice and true decision-making power at that table.
It is so exciting to see all of the energy and excitement around the 2024 election season. After all, I am the CEO of a charter network called Democracy Prep Public Schools. Civic education and full participation in our democracy is kind of our thing. All of our students register people to vote, engage in annual service learning projects, and participate in student government. If Vice President Kamala Harris is the first woman (and first woman of color) to be elected president of the United States in November, it will be a historic win. It’s amazing to see people energized about the presidential election and consequential elections at the state level because they know how fragile our democracy is. And they are putting their stake in the ground in the fight for what our country looks like over the next several years and decades.
David Gergen describes revolutionary leadership in the public arena as “hearts touched with fire” in his book of the same title. He chronicles so many moments in American history when leaders at various levels of public service had defining moments where they put their all into fighting for what they believed was right. And they deployed strategy, strength, and resolve to boot.
I have spent 25 years in education, and my heart is struck with fire every single day on the job, whether it be as a classroom teacher, a school principal, or a superintendent.
What fires me up and has me working for far less than I’d earn in the private sector in what some would describe as a thankless job is the idea that what happens each day in that classroom will have a profound impact on the trajectory of the young people sitting in those seats.
What fires me up is the fact that I understand that fixing public education in this country is a matter of civil rights in 2024.
The fact that the median income for a white family is 25K higher than the median income for a Black family today in America.
The fact that Black Americans make up 37% of the population in prison and jails while only making up 13% of the general population.
I see teachers every day at Democracy Prep whose hearts are struck with fire when they see our parents working so hard to support their children on their path to and through college, from getting them all those elements of the uniform on time for the launch of a new school year to practicing Math facts with them at home each night. I see teachers whose hearts are struck with fire by the brilliance of our students and the importance of their role. They are showing up as models and mentors for our students. They are showing up with well-planned lessons designed to close opportunity gaps, accelerate learning, engage learners, and strike our students’ hearts with fire about the inequities that still exist in the world and the significant problems we must solve together to build a better tomorrow. I see teachers arriving to school buildings in Harlem, the Bronx, San Antonio, and the historic west side of Las Vegas at 7:00 am fired up to change the world, with no superhero cape, just lots of preparation, deep belief in the generations — deep work they are doing, and a profound commitment to our students, their families, and our communities.
I think what we as a nation need to grapple with, in addition to working to reverse the effects of climate change, strengthening our democracy, reforming the criminal justice system, and ensuring our economy stays strong and income inequality doesn’t widen, is that support for public education needs to be strengthened, not relaxed.
We need to stop villainizing our teachers for poor academic performance and instead equip them with the tools necessary to run successful classrooms. We also need to ensure they can earn enough money to be homeowners themselves someday.
We need more creative programs like the Teacher Incentive Allotment in Texas, which rewards excellent teachers with six-figure salaries. We need federal programs like the Charter Schools Program and Title I funding to be fortified, not cut back.
“People who say it cannot be done, should not interrupt
those who are doing it”
—George Bernard Shaw
We need young people, our Gen Zers and later, the Gen Alphas, to consider jobs that “put you on a path to changing the trajectory of the world” in the words of Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, and current CEO of Teach for All. We need them to consider roles in schools. Especially after the disastrous effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to ensure that the next generation truly has the ability to go after their version of the American Dream.
We must use education to eliminate inequities or at least ensure our young people are hip to all the ways the cards may be stacked against them so they can navigate this new world, leverage technology, and acquire generational wealth. We need to not lose sight of the fact that educational inequity is a civil rights issue.
But, we must not put the problem of fixing education solely at the feet of our educators, current or future. Mike Bloomberg’s Summer Boost grant has allowed schools across the country serving some of the most historically underserved communities to significantly narrow COVID learning gaps in a few short years. We need more foundations to redouble their efforts to improve public education, not dilute them.
We need business owners, philanthropists, and the average American citizen to prioritize education. We need legislators, policy wonks, and research analysts to turn to public education as the defining element of their career. We need people to get fired up about inequities that persist in public schools the way they got fired up about Black school children being beaten for daring to sit at a segregated lunch counter in the South.
If every child is truly to be “judged [and to experience life] not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” we must too have our hearts touched with fire. We must be compelled to act now in support of public education for our children.
Our future elected officials, entrepreneurs, fortune 500 CEOs, philosophers, climate activists, rappers, like the late great Biggie Smalls, and teachers depend on it.