At first glance, this New York Times article on Brooklyn's Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice looks to be another feel-good story about the small schools initiative. It mentions the usual statistics--93 percent of seniors graduated, most are going to college, etc--but then the article takes a moment to focus on the dedicated teachers who make it all possible. As in many high-performing charter schools, this specific small school has a young principal (Elana Karopkin, 32). For four years she's led the school and produced what on the surface appear to be positive results. But, Ms. Karopkin is leaving her school to become an assistant superintendent at Achievement First. Here's what she has to say about the move:
Ms. Karopkin said it would be unfair to say she was burned out, but admitted she was nothing less than "exhausted," both physically and emotionally. "You are taking a bunch of hyper, type A perfectionist people and giving them a herculean task," she said. "People have to work much too hard to do what we are doing. People cannot work at this level all their lives and nobody is prepared to do something at a level of mediocrity."
I'm not sure that Achievement First will be much different (although perhaps in an oversight role the pressure subsides a smidge), but that's beside the point. Ms. Karopkin's comments are a rare, frank look at what happens when the raw enthusiasm of a twenty-something out to change the world collides with reality. Yes, these greenhorns enter these schools (be them small, charter, urban, etc.) with open minds and full hearts, but they're also incredibly driven and perfectionists (per Ms. Karopkin). Within Teach For America, "corps members have an average GPA of 3.6 and 95 percent held leadership positions on their college campuses." Based on their performance, I'd hazard a guess that the majority of these young reformers are not accustomed to failure.?? And when they see failure--students failing classes, dropping out of school, ending up on the streets--that is completely out of their control, it saps their will to continue the Sisyphean task of pushing kids to better and brighter futures. Therefore, the ultimate question is: how can schools capture the energy of these young teachers and funnel it such that it sustains for a longer period of time?
Could it be with more money? Smaller class sizes? Tempered expectations? A more gradual introduction to the problems of an urban classroom? For his part, chancellor Joel Klein said
"When people are part of the world of changing things for children, they don't view it is as work," he said, pointing to members of his own staff who log 14-hour days.
Perhaps Klein's crew doesn't view their work as such, but I'm not sure many of them spend time in the classroom. For the teachers that do, whether they view it as "work" or not, they require the means to maintain their sanity. If both innovative school districts and charter schools can't figure out how to meet these needs, we'll continue to lose our most talented reformers in the trenches.
