03/Apr/2008
Improving education Baton Rouge Native Returns Home As Regional Director for Teach For America
By Laura Nicole Stuart
Driving down Spanish Town Road, you can turn left to enter the hub of Louisiana policy and politics or right to drive through downtown Baton Rouge. You can drive straight until you hit 6th Street where a simple “Teach For America” sign marks the center of the effort to fight the achievement gap for low-income children in southern Louisiana.
It is 8 a.m. on a dark, dreary day, but no one would know it by this office. The chair with the navy blazer tossed over its back belonged to Michael Tipton, Executive Director of South Louisiana for Teach For America.
Teach For America is a non-profit organization that places teachers in low-income schools with the intent of closing the achievement gap that exists between children of different socioeconomic backgrounds. The Teach For America mission is to build the movement that will eliminate education inequality among children by enlisting the most promising future leaders of the United States in their efforts.
Achievement gap
Tipton was reading to a second grader at Highland Elementary, participating in the Volunteers in Public Schools Program (VIPS), when he was first exposed to the achievement gap so visible in southern Louisiana. He was reading to a second grader who was reading at or below the level of a kindergartener.
“It was there. It was tangible. To me, that was the striking first part of the achievement gap,” Tipton said. He was struck and outraged by the idea that this student was struggling so deeply when the same age level across town at University High read chapter books.
“That was the beginning point for my calling into education,” Tipton said. “I always thought I was going into politics, but I wanted to find a way to have an impact on this major problem.”
He also wanted to see something different so he went to New York City. It was an interesting change for someone who spent 22 years as a resident of Baton Rouge.
“If you cannot go see the world, go to New York because the world goes there,” Tipton joked. He saw his opportunity to tackle the achievement gap both strategically and intelligently. He said a benefit of volunteering to do a two-year stint with Teach For America is that you are alongside extremely intelligent and determined people who are equally committed to correcting a problem that reaches far beyond the Pelican State.
Mott Hall Bronx High
A principal, a math coach, a counselor, a teacher and two Teach For America volunteers formed the team of nine people who founded Mott Hall Bronx High School on the sixth floor of a building with no air-conditioning. Tipton taught ninth grade American history, a subject tailor-made for Tipton who refers to the achievement gap as “this generation’s Civil Rights movement.”
“We had no letterhead. We had no desks. We had no curriculum or structures,” Tipton said. “What we did in those two years [at Mott Hall] was take a group of 110 kids that the data said would have a graduating class of two or three, and we took them from reading on a 5th and 6th grade level to reading on a 10th grade level.”
By the end of the first year, 80 of those 110 kids were on the track to graduation in four years. They went from failing multiple choice tests that asked questions as simple as who George Washington was to writing comparative essays about the effects of war on American society. The educators had 78 kids talking about college who previously would never have completed high school.
“What occurred in that classroom was the difference for those kids,” Tipton said. “That was a life altering change for them.”
Bells and whistles
The success of the Mott Hall Bronx High School led to a $52 million new building with all the bells and whistles that technology could bring. Tipton said there was little to no difference in moving from the non air-conditioned building to the new building except that sparks did not fly every time two things were plugged in at the same time.
“It was about kids and investing in the kids, and making them do the work,” Tipton said.
A good teacher is a good leader. It is as simple as that for Teach For America. It is also about incredibly high expectations.
“You have got to invest in your kids that they can do it,” Tipton said. “You have got to believe in your kids. You have got to hold your kids to high expectations.”
Coming home
Tipton saw in his classroom a group of stereotyped kids that society said could not learn, but did. Their success proved that the misconceptions were wrong.
The Regional Director for South Louisiana was stepping down at the end of the year and someone asked Tipton if he was interested in coming back to Baton Rouge. That question and this opportunity brought Tipton from his apartment on the Upper West Side back to Louisiana.
“What I had to offer was a passion to fix things here in Louisiana,” Tipton said. “It is my home. It is where I was always coming back to.”
Nationally, Teach For America has 4,400 corps members in their first or second year of teaching. In Louisiana, there are 130 teachers placed in the New Orleans region and 74 teachers placed in the region bridging from Baton Rouge to Opelousas. These teachers are bringing hope and opportunity to the low-income students of Louisiana.
Great schools, underserved
“It is not that there are no great schools in low-income areas, it is that on average, low-income schools are being underserved by our education system,” Tipton said.
Tipton thinks Louisiana has the capacity to fix the problem. He said schools are suffering without the capacity of people, resources, time, energy or money. Teach For America helps these schools by providing resources as part of their national mission.
Perhaps the most daunting task facing the program is the underlying ideology that the achievement gap is fundamental and will always exist, Tipton said. This assumption perpetuates the vicious cycle in which underprivileged kids are stuck.
Tiger Stadium full of people
The best and brightest young leaders in America are recruited because they believe every child can learn. The assumption that kids cannot learn must be broken, Tipton said.
The idea that 13 million children are growing up below the poverty line in low-income communities is an underestimate according to Teach For America. On average these children are three years behind their peers who are not growing up in low-income communities by the age of nine.
There are approximately 34,118 children growing up in East Baton Rouge Parish in families who are living below the poverty line. Of these children, 17,059 will graduate from high school by the age of 18 with the math and reading skills of an above-poverty line eighth grader. Only 1,706 will go to college.
However the most startling statistic is the 70,000 children living in low-income homes in Louisiana who dropped out of school last year. Forty percent of public school freshmen in southern Louisiana do not graduate from high school.
“That is more or less a Tiger Stadium full of people who do not have a high school degree,” Tipton said.
Louisiana has been ranked among the top 10 states nationally for its efforts to improve schools and performance of students. Teach For America corps members and alumni are having a tremendous impact upon their students in southern Louisiana communities, Tipton said.
“They convert the people around them because they have done it and so you cannot tell them that it cannot be done,” he said.
Tipton tells the story of an alumna named Allison Lewis who is now in law school at LSU. He quotes her as saying, “I convinced second-grade boys to wash their hands. Do not tell me that I cannot negotiate a Fortune 500 company because that first job was a lot harder.”
Two-thirds of Teach For America participants stay in education.
Expensive and Painful Problems
“It is an absolutely startling reality, and it shocks me daily that there is not enough of an outcry from the public,” Tipton said.
If we fail to close the achievement gap, expensive and painful problems are going to be the result he said. Half of the population will not get a solid education. “That is going to cause a ripple effect that will be felt for the next 60 or 70 years,” Tipton said.
By Laura Nicole Stuart
Driving down Spanish Town Road, you can turn left to enter the hub of Louisiana policy and politics or right to drive through downtown Baton Rouge. You can drive straight until you hit 6th Street where a simple “Teach For America” sign marks the center of the effort to fight the achievement gap for low-income children in southern Louisiana. It is 8 a.m. on a dark, dreary day, but no one would know it by this office. The chair with the navy blazer tossed over its back belonged to Michael Tipton, Executive Director of South Louisiana for Teach For America.
Teach For America is a non-profit organization that places teachers in low-income schools with the intent of closing the achievement gap that exists between children of different socioeconomic backgrounds. The Teach For America mission is to build the movement that will eliminate education inequality among children by enlisting the most promising future leaders of the United States in their efforts.
Achievement gap
Tipton was reading to a second grader at Highland Elementary, participating in the Volunteers in Public Schools Program (VIPS), when he was first exposed to the achievement gap so visible in southern Louisiana. He was reading to a second grader who was reading at or below the level of a kindergartener.
“It was there. It was tangible. To me, that was the striking first part of the achievement gap,” Tipton said. He was struck and outraged by the idea that this student was struggling so deeply when the same age level across town at University High read chapter books.
“That was the beginning point for my calling into education,” Tipton said. “I always thought I was going into politics, but I wanted to find a way to have an impact on this major problem.”
He also wanted to see something different so he went to New York City. It was an interesting change for someone who spent 22 years as a resident of Baton Rouge.
“If you cannot go see the world, go to New York because the world goes there,” Tipton joked. He saw his opportunity to tackle the achievement gap both strategically and intelligently. He said a benefit of volunteering to do a two-year stint with Teach For America is that you are alongside extremely intelligent and determined people who are equally committed to correcting a problem that reaches far beyond the Pelican State.
Mott Hall Bronx High
A principal, a math coach, a counselor, a teacher and two Teach For America volunteers formed the team of nine people who founded Mott Hall Bronx High School on the sixth floor of a building with no air-conditioning. Tipton taught ninth grade American history, a subject tailor-made for Tipton who refers to the achievement gap as “this generation’s Civil Rights movement.”
“We had no letterhead. We had no desks. We had no curriculum or structures,” Tipton said. “What we did in those two years [at Mott Hall] was take a group of 110 kids that the data said would have a graduating class of two or three, and we took them from reading on a 5th and 6th grade level to reading on a 10th grade level.”
By the end of the first year, 80 of those 110 kids were on the track to graduation in four years. They went from failing multiple choice tests that asked questions as simple as who George Washington was to writing comparative essays about the effects of war on American society. The educators had 78 kids talking about college who previously would never have completed high school.
“What occurred in that classroom was the difference for those kids,” Tipton said. “That was a life altering change for them.”
Bells and whistles
The success of the Mott Hall Bronx High School led to a $52 million new building with all the bells and whistles that technology could bring. Tipton said there was little to no difference in moving from the non air-conditioned building to the new building except that sparks did not fly every time two things were plugged in at the same time.
“It was about kids and investing in the kids, and making them do the work,” Tipton said.
A good teacher is a good leader. It is as simple as that for Teach For America. It is also about incredibly high expectations.
“You have got to invest in your kids that they can do it,” Tipton said. “You have got to believe in your kids. You have got to hold your kids to high expectations.”
Coming home
Tipton saw in his classroom a group of stereotyped kids that society said could not learn, but did. Their success proved that the misconceptions were wrong.
The Regional Director for South Louisiana was stepping down at the end of the year and someone asked Tipton if he was interested in coming back to Baton Rouge. That question and this opportunity brought Tipton from his apartment on the Upper West Side back to Louisiana.
“What I had to offer was a passion to fix things here in Louisiana,” Tipton said. “It is my home. It is where I was always coming back to.”
Nationally, Teach For America has 4,400 corps members in their first or second year of teaching. In Louisiana, there are 130 teachers placed in the New Orleans region and 74 teachers placed in the region bridging from Baton Rouge to Opelousas. These teachers are bringing hope and opportunity to the low-income students of Louisiana.
Great schools, underserved
“It is not that there are no great schools in low-income areas, it is that on average, low-income schools are being underserved by our education system,” Tipton said.
Tipton thinks Louisiana has the capacity to fix the problem. He said schools are suffering without the capacity of people, resources, time, energy or money. Teach For America helps these schools by providing resources as part of their national mission.
Perhaps the most daunting task facing the program is the underlying ideology that the achievement gap is fundamental and will always exist, Tipton said. This assumption perpetuates the vicious cycle in which underprivileged kids are stuck.
Tiger Stadium full of people
The best and brightest young leaders in America are recruited because they believe every child can learn. The assumption that kids cannot learn must be broken, Tipton said.
The idea that 13 million children are growing up below the poverty line in low-income communities is an underestimate according to Teach For America. On average these children are three years behind their peers who are not growing up in low-income communities by the age of nine.
There are approximately 34,118 children growing up in East Baton Rouge Parish in families who are living below the poverty line. Of these children, 17,059 will graduate from high school by the age of 18 with the math and reading skills of an above-poverty line eighth grader. Only 1,706 will go to college.
However the most startling statistic is the 70,000 children living in low-income homes in Louisiana who dropped out of school last year. Forty percent of public school freshmen in southern Louisiana do not graduate from high school.
“That is more or less a Tiger Stadium full of people who do not have a high school degree,” Tipton said.
Louisiana has been ranked among the top 10 states nationally for its efforts to improve schools and performance of students. Teach For America corps members and alumni are having a tremendous impact upon their students in southern Louisiana communities, Tipton said.
“They convert the people around them because they have done it and so you cannot tell them that it cannot be done,” he said.
Tipton tells the story of an alumna named Allison Lewis who is now in law school at LSU. He quotes her as saying, “I convinced second-grade boys to wash their hands. Do not tell me that I cannot negotiate a Fortune 500 company because that first job was a lot harder.”
Two-thirds of Teach For America participants stay in education.
Expensive and Painful Problems
“It is an absolutely startling reality, and it shocks me daily that there is not enough of an outcry from the public,” Tipton said.
If we fail to close the achievement gap, expensive and painful problems are going to be the result he said. Half of the population will not get a solid education. “That is going to cause a ripple effect that will be felt for the next 60 or 70 years,” Tipton said.
Comments
Posted by: Guest
Status: Guest |
Member since: | Date Posted: 14/Apr/2008 05:30:28
I am going to volunteer..what a wonderful program and opportunity for citizens to get involved.
Posted by: Guest
Status: Guest |
Member since: | Date Posted: 18/Apr/2008 16:12:11
teach for america
Michael Tipton is a wonderful director and will make great strides for this organization and for southern Louisiana.