Janelle (not her real name) is a bright African American teenager, two years behind in school and currently failing in her course work. She is clearly a child not performing at her academic potential. What if we made policy as if the needs of Janelle, a public school student I tutor, were our primary concern?
What Would Janelle Need to succeed?
Janelle would need a warm safe home that is securely hers. She and her mother and siblings have been shuffling from one shelter to another for at least two years. Whenever she moves she misses school for days, even weeks. Sometimes when I meet with her issues of security, lack of sleep and fear are too great to focus on reading.
Janelle’s family would need a steady form of income. With a preschool child at home, this means her mother must either earn income to stay home with her child or earn enough at a job to pay for high-quality day care. Economic needs are so overwhelming in Janelle’s home that academic needs must be secondary.
Janelle would need a future. She would need to see people like herself who succeed- not fantastic rags to riches stories that she can only dream about but real possible paths to a future that provides a diverse array of positive choices.
Janelle would need a school system that allows her to make real progress. Now when she goes to school she is faced with overwhelming task of running to catch up to a moving train. Her progress is not measured, only the growing distance between her and her class mates. Testing kids to death, closing schools, reducing teachers’ benefits, don’t benefit Janelle. Only fully funding our schools to provide the teachers and materials needed to fulfill the needs of all students, will help Janelle succeed.
As a reading tutor I dream of the day that there is no shortage of books to chose from written to address cultural, academic, social and emotional needs of African American children, and other children of color. We treasure every new book because of its rarity, and the cost of procuring it. Janelle would need books and curricula that speak to her soul and her academic needs. She would need the funds to flood children like herself with books so they can find their own voices through literature.
As the white over-educated mother of a public school high school senior excelling in the same public school system that is failing Janelle, I know how much daily assistance my child has needed in the last thirteen years, from adjusting to kindergarten rules to mining the college application process. If we are ever going to close the education gap Janelle would need a school that provides evening and weekend homework assistance. This is a tall order. It means providing transportation, lights, and heat and salaries.
Janelle would need to know there will be a place for her in college when she gets there. We need to pay her tuition and find her an institution that will take her the next step. As a college educator I know that despite the current hype, selectivity does not create excellence in the higher education institutions. It only ensures that the next crop of college-educated leaders will be as insular and narrow-minded about protecting their class privilege, as the last. We need more colleges and more access, more ideas and backgrounds in the best and brightest pot, so that the next generation of people with
know-power will have the interests of Janelle’s children in mind.
From a home to live in, to college tuition, everything Janelle needs costs money. Anyone who thinks they have a solution to the education gap that will not involve spending more on the needs of our neediest children is wasting their breath and our time.
But here is a question to ask yourself: Would your life be better or worse if the policy makers, from the President to local school boards, asked What Would Janelle Need before they acted?
Would you be better off if no-one was homeless; if everyone had adequate work, and mothers could afford to choose to stay home or access high quality childcare; if everyone had health coverage and every child felt they had a future with choices and a positive and fulfilling role to play in society? Would your world be better or worse if every child was given the resources to reach their education potential at their own pace; if every child had the choice to become a college-educated adult?
It’s an election year. The pundits would have you believe that you, the public, can be divided by your issues – domestic or foreign, economic or social, health care, or housing, or education. Tell them these are fools’ choices. Demand that the candidates and the media spinners dig deeper. Tell them to ask WWJN?---- What Would Janelle Need? And when they come back with “How do we pay for it?” Tell them to begin by STWS---- Stopping The War ……Sweetie !
Anne Winkler-Morey, Ph .D teaches history at colleges and Universities in the Twin Cities area and is a reading tutor for “Janelle” and others in the
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