I am tickled that Nicholas Kristof's New York Times' Op-Ed piece, "Rising Above I.Q." ranked as the No. 1 article emailed on Sunday. That means thousands of people are reading and thinking about the fact that most of us in education already know: No single ethnicity or race is smarter than any other. Rather, almost anyone who's willing to work really hard can be successful. As I learned in my initial Teach For America training, "Work Hard, Get Smart, Woo Woo!" For every person who doubts that kids can't learn simply because of their ethnicity or family background, I (and my teaching colleagues) have a kid to prove you wrong.

What resonated the most, however, are the implications or policy lessons of this concept:

"It’s that the most decisive weapons in the war on poverty aren’t transfer payments but education, education, education. For at-risk households, that starts with social workers making visits to encourage such basic practices as talking to children. One study found that a child of professionals (disproportionately white) has heard about 30 million words spoken by age 3; a black child raised on welfare has heard only 10 million words, leaving that child at a disadvantage in school.
The next step is intensive early childhood programs, followed by improved elementary and high schools, and programs to defray college costs."

While all this may be obvious to anyone working in education, it reminds us that the traditional school infrastructure is not designed to coach parenting skills, counsel students who are victims of abuse, or help students who don't get to eat on the weekends. Most social workers I know are worked to the bone but can't get to half of what they know must be done. Most high-needs districts don't have free intensive early childhood programs in place yet, and there aren't enough school psychologists to go around.

But these are the circumstances we and our children live in today, and serious student success can't wait for programs and resources to be designed and distributed. Here's a big thank you and take care to all the amazing educators who go way above and far beyond the job description to make sure students from all backgrounds have no excuses not to succeed, even if it means having Elroy's mom on speed dial, bringing in peanut butter sandwiches and staying after to tutor until 8 each night.

While I realize part of his perspective stems from eating hummus and cereal for every dinner last week, I also realize that like so many of my peers in this profession dedicated to serving kids in low-income communities, I'm prone to working really, really, really hard for a really, really, really long time without coming up for air. Or scrubbing the bathroom. And that is partly what leads to burnout, an all-too-common phenomenon that contributes to our lower retention rate of teachers and leaders in this fight for education equity.

I realize new teachers, especially those teaching in high-needs schools, may be feeling drained and disillusioned as school lets out, and may be asking whether this is even possible as a long-term career. You're right-- this is time-consuming, challenging and exhausting work. I don't have answers, but I truly believe it's possible and that we absolutely must stay to make it work in our most challenging schools and districts in order for any changes to really happen.

Now, I am the last person in this business who would advocate working less hard. I believe that a lack of intelligent hard work was part of what led us down this whole achievement gap road in the first place. But I think I am now advocating that we take on less and do it really well (no, I can't coach cheerleading, Ms. Barney... really.)... and that we be OK with getting a B+ (or even B-) on certain projects (like that art class I taught where the kids only sewed because my mom had given me a box of needles and thread. I had been busy working on a reading unit plan rather than planning the art curriculum, thank goodness).

I'm reminding myself that we need to reflect more on whether all the hours we put in are truly purposeful (like the time I spent 6 hours on a weekend making a paper hot air balloon and puppets because I was convinced that was really the way I was going to engage my kids... as opposed to having a really tightly managed lesson plan with clear key points and checks for understanding. Right. You know how that one ended.)

And whenever I panic that "omigod, it feels like I'm doing the job of 3 people," I know it's because we actually need more talented people to join us and stay in education in low-income, under-performing communities.

As the summer rolls around and we open into my busiest work season (training new teachers and planning for the upcoming year), it'll be easy to make 85 hour weeks the norm. I have to remember, however, that while thought of slowing down terrifies me, what's scares me more is the image of me losing energy, enthusiasm and desire to engage in this work in three, four or 10 years. As my wise executive director reminded us this past week, you need to put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others. This summer (and beyond), I'm committing to deliberately enjoy my life both in and out of education. For me, that means blogging and writing more, spending my Saturdays cooking, putting down the laptop to take a 20 minute gym break, and making "wine on the porch with Bill" a part of my To Do list. I make no promises, however, that there will be scrubbing of the bathroom.

But because it's Friday night and it's a dinner party at my house, behavior and learning weren't the primary lens I saw them through. I got to know one of the kids first through the lens of being the guest who was the first to dig into his vegetables, scored major points by helping himself to seconds and helped me make tea after dinner. It wasn't until later in the evening that I learned he struggles in school, has been suspended for more than a month so far this school year, and admitted to instigating behavior issues earlier in the year for his English teacher who happens to be in Teach For America.

After dinner, "Albert" and I talked about education in DC and El Salvador, as well as what all kids deserve from public education in America. I told him I am available to help him with anything in school he needs. Despite being a self-professed reluctant and angry student, he instantly brightened at the offer. Then, he hung his head and admitted that reading is really hard for him and that it takes him three times longer to write anything because while he wants to express himself with the really big words that he knows, he ends up spending so much time fishing for the simpler words he can spell. (However, he did say that his current TFA English teacher has taught him more than he has learned in the past four years--- go Ms. K!). Then he asked me to teach him to read.

I may already log in 70 hours a week every week as a program director, but as an educator, a believer in children and an eduholic, how could I say no??? I gave a resounding yes, of course, and proceeded to pull out books to evaluate his skill with sight words, decoding and comprehension. It was while we were decoding the word "imitation" that he learned what "tion" sounds like and had one of those glorious aha moment. And that's when I remembered that eduholics are addicted for a great reason. We can't get enough of kids learning. For those addicted to closing the achievement gap, it's that we can't get enough of getting the most struggling kids to learn, especially if they're almost 17 and just learning what "tion" sounds like. And most especially if they eat all their vegetables and help make after-dinner tea.

Mr. Duncan, I may not agree with you on everything, but I find your interview ideas compelling. The time for innovation and movement is now. Here’s to hoping your smart interview translates into bold leadership.

Readers: ‘Thanks’ or ‘No Thanks’ to Mr. Duncan’s ideas?

But apparently when anyone, even someone many decades my senior, yells out to me across the Caribou Coffee Shop that kids in the inner-city can't possibly learn, I have to yell back. Politely. Firmly. Loudly. So everyone in the shop can hear me when I say: "All children can learn. They just need to be taught better and more by their teachers, and better and more by everyone else around them."

My debate partner argued back. Equally firmly. Equally loudly: "No. You're wrong. You're holding our community down, making the kids in Anacostia learn the same standards and reading. Our kids can't learn that stuff. We need to give them vocational classes so they have something to do after graduation."

It's important to realize that I don't entirely disagree. It'd be wonderful if more vocational classes were available to kids who wanted to focus on carpentry or graphic design. And for the record, I don't advocate fighting as a way to advance our ideas about closing the achievement gap. But...

"Of course the kids in Anacostia can learn that stuff! It may take longer to learn after so many years of poor teaching, but they can! We have high school teachers there whose entire classes have already increased by more than two reading grade levels this year! Two grade levels is the difference between reading to their kids at night or perpetuating the reading gap for another generation! Vocational classes are great-- as long as kids have a choice and don't go for it because they haven't been taught to read and they're 15!"

And so we go on. Loudly. Obnoxiously. In the middle of the day while everyone around us desperately tries to read or work. After about 10 minutes of yelling, I put my headphones on, switch tables and refuse to respond. I'm late with a project and I'm starting to worry that I'm confusing and angering the man more than motivating him and others.

But after a half hour when tempers cooled, I saw the old man come toward my table. I brace for another round of heated discussion. Instead, he came by with the business card of his new educational nonprofit focused on student mentoring. He still didn't fully agree with my ideas, he said, but he could see my point and saw we were ultimately arguing for and angry over the same things. We're both angry that kids in DC aren't learning anywhere near enough and that everyone in the community is responsible for doing a whole lot about it. And with that, we accomplished what's probably one of the hardest first steps to take—talking about how to close the achievement gap. Actively. Publicly. Loudly.

Daniel just so happens to be a martial arts superstar, but that was only part of the reason why my boys asked me each week about my then-20-year-old brother. He was who they could relate to. In a teacher's desperate attempt to gain control when working with one of my most challenging students in second-year of teaching, I shared my brother's story. Daniel was never a fan of school and struggled miserably at it for most/all of his life. He failed/nearly failed a few (a lot) of classes in middle school. He didn't have a lot of friends and always got in trouble at home. And he was always compared to his goody-two-shoes big sister. Always.

But in 10th grade, as he was failing class after class, Daniel discovered an interest in martial arts and pursued it. He realized that when he worked hard at something, he did well. He earned praise. He worked harder. And over a few months, he started transferring that mindset over to his school work. By the end of the year, he had worked so hard and took advantage of all the interventions offered to him by the school, he dramatically raised his grades. He graduated high school (it was still a rocky road) and went on to a community college. Then he transferred to a four-year university.

As my student, "Corey" listened, he grew more interested in my brother and peppered me with questions about what Daniel went through. At the end, Corey felt better and got back to work.

I, however, wasn't feeling much better. It hit me in the gut, as it has so many times throughout my work in education, that Daniel's story is what often happens to those of privilege and those with resources. Corey's story does not start with privilege and resource.

There were intervention programs at school, teachers who taught well, and counselors with small-enough caseloads to create homework lunches. My parents took time from work to volunteer at school, read with him every night, paid thousands of dollars for academic enrichment programs, and dragged him through homework night after night.

Corey had a family who loved him, but who wasn't always there, and he had whatever was offered at school, which oftentimes was not much. Pair that with a disability, and you have a 6th grader reading at the 2nd grade level and doing math at the kindergarten level. Daniel may have struggled to read, but it was never a question whether he'd pass the 5th grade text.

Whenever I explain what we do as special educators in Teach For America, I explain that we are working to close the gap within the achievement gap. It is sobering to know that if my brother attended my school in New Mexico, he would have been in special education by the time he got to my 6th grade class and would probably not be where he is right now-- studying for an upcoming accounting exam, hanging out with friends at the university and planning to teach English this summer in Taiwan.

Similarly sobering is knowing deep down that if the 40-some students I taught over two years-- the same kids who learned so ridiculously much in our short time together-- had attended the same high-performing public schools Daniel and I went to, the vast majority of them would not require special education services. Virtually no one would be labeled SPED for life. No one would have to discretely duck into resource classrooms. They would all be reading near grade level.

The good news in all this? We can fix schools. And by fixing schools, we can give Corey pretty much the same opportunities Daniel had.

Political gimmick? Blog-worthy sound bite? A self-deprecating way to curry favor? Or just the cruel reality of what it means to not improve faster, better and at a rate of 100 percent in the world of education?

"If my goal is to provide every child that's in my care an excellent education, we're an F on that," she said. "I want to be evaluated on the quality of education that I'm providing to kids," Rhee said in the Times interview. Despite the numerical benchmarks we've hit over the past two years, we're still a long ways away. "The reality is that we have a 70 percent achievement gap between our white kids and our black kids, Ms. Rhee said."

I believe her when she says that DC will one day be the nation's top-performing urban district. I also want to believe that her "F" is more than just a sound bite-- that it's also a sign that our district's leader will hold herself honestly and publicly accountable for doing what's best for kids.

I'm a supporter of No Child Left Behind, not because it doesn't need a ton of fixing, but because I believe it's driving us in the right direction and holding us all accountable to children learning.

So when I heard high school students on National Public Radio tear NCLB apart at the seams and debate why it isn't working, I cried. Not because I disagreed (there are indeed many reasons why it isn't working), but because almost every student at the high school debate competition profiled on NPR attend schools where my first- and second-year teachers teach at. Those young adults go to some of the most under-resourced, under-staffed and under-rigorous schools in the lowest income communities of Washington, DC. And here they were, grappling with whether NCLB has worked.

I went on npr.org to see if anyone had left comments about how great it was that high schoolers were debating some of the most challenging questions we're facing this generation. And to my surprise, no one had said anything about how great it was to hear this positive coverage of DC public high schools for once. Rather, it was a debate on-- you guessed it-- whether NCLB has worked. It was a lively debate from all sorts of directions, some I agreed with (that education needn't be a scarce commodity) and others that I didn't (that too much of our tax dollars are going toward our lowest performing students).

And then the obvious dawned on me. How different would this online discussion look if my own kids from the Navajo Nation could talk about how it wasn't just fancy resources, but objective-driven teachers who got them to grow by 2 grade levels in one year? What would it be like if kids from the border towns of Texas could argue back that NCLB actually deprived them of a more holistic education? How would it sound if one of the DC student debaters could chime in about how accountability actually held his teachers to rigorous standards for once? (A student actually did defend NCLB for that reason in the news piece).

We all have our own opinions about NCLB and one day, my kids will to be able to analyze and rip your ideas apart, or defend them with their own insights. That is what closing the achievement gap will look like.

With the sweep of his pen on Tuesday, President Barack Obama will more than double the budget for education when he signs the $789 billion stimulus package. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will have a glorious $100 billion to deliver to needy schools, programs and universities.

As The New York Times describes: "The plan would shower the nation’s school districts, child care centers and university campuses with $150 billion (updated: $100 billion) in new federal spending, a vast two-year investment that would more than double the Department of Education’s current budget. The proposed emergency expenditures on nearly every realm of education, including school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy college students, would amount to the largest increase in federal aid since Washington began to spend significantly on education after World War II."

Can you even begin to imagine where this cash will go toward and what it can do? Maybe new lockers and painted walls for the dilapidated high schools in Washington, DC? Developmentally appropriate after-school programs on the Navajo Nation?
In-depth teacher training on effective special education inclusion co-teaching? Strong, standards-aligned assessments for every grade level and every content in every district? A rocking financial aid package for all the low-income students who have made it and are receiving their first college acceptance letters in the mail right around now???

My (and everyone else's) daydreams for how to use the funds can go on forever. Because they are just that-- daydreams that won't come true without the right folks doing the right things really, really well. The stimulus is no silver bullet, I have to remind myself, and throwing money at a problem has never fixed anything.

It will take relentless hard work, analyzing and re-analyzing to figure out what we're doing right in classrooms and not being afraid to change what we discover is going wrong (even if it is already February and it feels impossible to change the routines in your kindergarten classroom), and most important of all, basing it all on what is best for kids. It takes really, really high-quality teaching that sticks, something that doesn't require magic or a billion dollars to develop. It's what many of us are already doing now-- more money will help make sure we're able to keep up the good fight and work smarter.

We'll let Secretary Duncan and his team take on the exciting, envious and outrageously challenging work to figure out who, what, how and when the money will go. In the meantime, let's just focus on teaching really, really well.

(And cross our fingers that those lockers get installed before next fall.)

Everyone loves the idea of education, but it's always among the first to go. The original $83 billion proposed two days ago to go toward child care, public schools and universities.? Too good to be true. Building new schools will not close the achievement gap (psst, it's the teacher quality that will) but it's shovel-ready and it sure can help.

Now, that's not to say our teachers (and maybe a few students) weren't doing snow dances and up at 5 am obsessively refreshing the DCPS closings page. But once you lose the disappointment of having to go to school after hours of praying to the snow gods, we're actually proud that we're not pausing for the snow day, because quite frankly, the achievement gap isn't either. That said, thank goodness for those extra two hours of sleep.

This is a piece he wrote to kick our teachers off to the new school year back in August. But I can't think of any better words to commemorate this magical and awe-inspiring time for our children and for ourselves. More thoughts on MLK Jr. Day and Inauguration to come. In the meantime, here's to hope.

“No Day, One Day, Some Day Real Soon”
by MenSa Ankh Maa
Sam Cooke sings “A Change Is Gonna Come” in my memory as now, we prepare for what will be the first day of the rest of our lives; both for us and our children in the DC Region.

No day, one day, some day real soon.

No day: When the very laws of this nation stand in direct contradiction to our founding principles.
No day, slavery.
No day, genocide.
No day, segregation.
No day, immigration laws.
No day, Plessy Vs. Ferguson.
No day, Rodney King, Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo, DeAunta Farrow.
No day, the legal oppression of women.

No day, one day, some day real soon.

One day: Visions of what could be, but has never been.
Strides toward freedom, but the finish line of the race keeps changing, as do the rules of engagement.

One day, when the nine brave students of Little Rock, willingly laid their lives on the line so Black and White children could go to the same schools with the same resources.
One day, when Wendy Kopp had a vision that all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.
One day, when a school chancellor had the courage to take on a union that did not serve the children and families who paid their salaries.

No day, one day, some day real soon.

“Some day real soon” is the hope and faith in what can be, but never was.
Some day real soon, when all of us can proudly claim this nation as ours without remorse or feeling like a hypocrite.

Some day real soon, we may not only have a Black president, but one who will radically change the status quo of politricks in this nation.
Some day real soon, the test scores of children in Congress Heights or Anacostia will beat the pants off many students in private schools in Georgetown.
Some day real soon, capitalism will be turned on its head as students of all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds have the knowledge and skills to be competitive in a global market.
Some day real soon, our vision will align with the priorities of this nation and we will all believe in every child’s potential.
Some day real soon.

But today is all we have. Today we remember what has brought us here and chart a course for where we need to go. Today we act on our faith and put much of the world on our backs.

Today we teach.

Secondly, this article on the enormous impact of mentoring caught my attention on Christmas: "Mentor Helps Hispanic Teens Stay in School." It profiles the work of amazing people out there who are neither certified teachers nor child development specialists nor experts on character development. Rather, they are the everyday wonders who are personal and positive supporters, cheerleaders, tutors, educators and role models for many kids from underprivileged backgrounds.

This reminded me of my current-favorite commercial out there by Big Brothers, Big Sisters, set out to recruit mentors for youth...

... which reminded me of a heartfelt conversation I had a couple weeks ago with a family member during parent-teacher conference day at Anacostia High School. The older gentleman was missing a number of teeth and walked with a limp. He had grown up "doing shady things" in the streets of Anacostia growing up and had learned a lot of things the hard way. But because he had a mentor through church, he figured out the right way to go. Over the years, he also became a mentor to other boys to help make sure they stayed in school and stay optimistic. He passionately and eloquently insisted that the key to closing the achievement gap in the roughest and poorest parts of DC was having mentors for each and every child so they would always have a strong and positive support system...

... which reminded me of an old friend, a Boeing engineer with no previously known interest in children, who decided to become a mentor in his Seattle community on a whim. Imagine my surprise when he mentioned this a week ago. He just came back from a ropes course and is now working to build a trusting relationship with boys with emotional and behavioral issues...

... which reminds me of the most incredible senior in Washington, DC, my mentee "Wendy." She arrived from China just three years ago knowing barely any English. Today, she can read, write and speak English with ease. She takes AP courses along with French and Spanish, and volunteers at a soup kitchen and at her school's Math Lab. We were paired up this past summer through Asian American LEAD, a nonprofit organization working to support under-resourced communities in DC.

We work on her college and scholarship applications, among other things. She's done an amazing job on her own over the past few years, but there's so much more information, support and help she needs to make this final push to college so she could pursue her dream of becoming an architect...

And what does she want to do immediately after college? Join the Peace Corps, so she could give back to people with the greatest need around the world. Mentoring is education. And education has a neat habit of coming full circle.

And while I watch Rhee's disregard for "finesse" with shock and horror at times (C'mon, at least try to be a little more diplomatic. More diplomacy and tighter public appearances ARE in the best interest of kids. Really!), I am proud of her principles and the changes she's brought about in the district, as uncomfortable as they often are.

So with all that in mind, I read US News and World Report's Op-Ed piece on how Arne Duncan, the incoming education secretary, is going to have to grapple with Michelle Rhee and all the uncomfortable parts that she stands for.

"Rhee wants to take school reform where no other school chief, including Duncan in Chicago, has dared go: sweeping incompetent teachers from their jobs. That's a confrontation with the teachers' unions that Duncan, who aspires to get along with everyone, would undoubtedly prefer to duck."

"What Duncan and other school chiefs prefer to neglect, however, can't be sidestepped in Washington. While Rhee may ping in the lower registers of the emotional intelligence range (what was she thinking in agreeing to pose on a Time cover looking like the wicked witch of the East?), she's not an outlier. Rhee is the pointy tip of a revolution determined to take on what Duncan and other school chiefs ignore: basic teacher competency. For decades, too many teachers have arisen from the hindquarter of the SAT scale. In college, they were steered into flaccid undergraduate programs befitting their campus "cash cow" status (would-be teachers pay the same tuition as, say, physics students, but they don't need expensive labs). Once on the job, their promotions are based on often-pointless graduate degrees. This is the one education reform rock that's never truly been turned over."

Yowzers. Minus two points to Ms. Rhee for her cringe-worthy, very un-diplomatic one-liners and public appearances that pinch people in a really not-good way. But plus 10 points for taking uncomfortable, but critical issues head on and going where no one has yet successful gone before.

You heard me. The gap won't have a chance.

It was late summer and I was at a coffee shop desperately pumping up my hesitant first-year teacher for her kindergarten interview. She had taught secondary math all summer and now she had a chance in early childhood. Understandably, she was scared. As someone with only secondary experience, I was mildly terrified too. But if it's where she was needed to be, then let's do it. She just needed a little urging.

Pounding the table with my fist, I explained: Preschool is where 3- and 4-year olds are getting the opportunity to learn their letters and be set up for reading on time. All across the district in Teach For America-taught Kindergarten classes, kids are learning to read at a first or second grade level by the time they enter first grade. Early childhood education (ECE) is where you're putting them, not on the right track, but the better than best track. These children may come from low-income families, but you're giving them an even greater head start in life. We are going to kill the achievement gap before it even starts.

By the time I finished my passionate speech, I was ready to take on a class of 5-year-olds myself. Thankfully, so was my teacher, who went off the next day to interview and scored the job. By the way, despite her (and my) initial fears, her kids (and I) are doing great.

Thankfully, our enthusiasm is not alone. Obama has just pledged $10 billion toward ECE. (1.4% of the $700 billion bailout money, but the biggest chunk of change toward ECE yet!)

The New York Times writes: "Driving the movement is research by a Nobel Prize-winning economist, James J. Heckman, and others showing that each dollar devoted to the nurturing of young children can eliminate the need for far greater government spending on remedial education, teenage pregnancy and prisons."

Popular opinion supports it. Educators, foundations and researchers are all pouring time and energy into it. Early childhood education is in the spotlight more than ever. Let's just make sure we do it right. Let's make sure it's quality (and fun!) education that teaches students developmentally appropriate and rigorous material that sets them up to be not just on-track, but ahead for first grade. This means learning their letters along with playing dress up. It means deliberately being taught how to play nice with others, how to sit quietly during Morning Meeting, and how to draw with lots of different colors of markers.

My pessimistic side is bracing for lots of preschools suddenly sprouting that end up being little more than glorified daycare and little care for quality (and age appropriate and fun) instruction. But it doesn't have to be so. Educators across the country, including Teach For America teachers in DC teaching early education, have made significant and measurable gains for their preschool and kindergarten students. (I'm tooting our own horn, because the ECE team here is pretty incredible.)

According to the recent Education Week article, "During the 2007-08 school year, 124 pre-K pupils in the 49,000-student school district who were taught by TFA corps members learned to recognize all or most of the letters of the alphabet, according to the study by Westat.

The findings are “remarkable,” writes Nicholas Zill, the author of the paper, who recently retired from his post as a vice president of the Rockville, Md.-based research organization, “because getting young children from low-income families to learn all their letters before they start kindergarten is an accomplishment that is not usually achieved in Head Start or in public school prekindergartens serving low-income, central-city families.”

So, Mr. Obama, thank you for the promise of 10 big ones. But please, make sure we use it on quality care and instruction for children and parents like you promised during the debates. Because until we close this achievement gap, it's a rough learning world out there and we need to arm these four-year-olds with all we can before they become a part of it.