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Class Notes
	A last look at the school year (Published June 28, 2004) By MATT WENNERSTEN

Bolt the doors! Bar the exits! It’s a good thing that students finish a day before teachers; who wants to see a trail of shoe prints down kids’ backs, as teachers fight to bust out of school the fastest? The collective sigh as school ends, from students, teachers and administrators, is deafening. All thoughts are on summer vacation and play.

So, with that in mind, let’s take one last look at the year before we drain the memory banks. The question being asked throughout D.C. Public Schools, by one teacher to another, is "How was your year?" There are no simple answers. Teaching in DCPS is difficult. Our kids are needy, in many ways. Each year, my students come to me with huge gaps in their knowledge. Many of them will progress only very slightly. Some of my kids will go backwards and "learn" new misconceptions. In one class of 24 students, I failed 15. How do you summarize the hundreds of ups and downs on the emotional roller coaster that is DCPS?

Still, it has been a great year. Note that this is much easier to say now that the students are gone! Our standardized test scores, the stick used to beat schools into submission, are up slightly in math. My students produced the best grade-point average I’ve ever had, and more importantly, have made huge gains in understanding. I’d like to especially thank my colleagues Elizabeth Samworth and Deanna Ortiz in the Bell Special Education Department, who have turned around and turned on to math kids whose prior experience in mathematics has been failure, frustration and fear. I went into teaching because I like explaining things to people, not because I had a burning desire to work with children, and now I have to say I love the kids. It is an immense privilege to meet each year’s group of talented, interesting and intelligent young people, and I look forward to seeing many of them again next year, one grade advanced and infinitely more mature.

Students at Bell closed out the year by presenting their portfolio of assignments. Listening to well-prepared, articulate explanations of meaningful math problems has been a joy to a math teacher’s heart. Almost every student who presented to the portfolio panel was able to clearly explain what they had done, and more importantly, why they had done it. Another aspect is that the students were able to compare their work from September to now – and see the enormous change. Students who at the start of the year struggled with "–3 + 4" are now talking fluently about linear inequalities with negative slopes. It is a tremendously useful activity for students to present their work – about as much learning took place during the process of practicing and revising their portfolios as when they did the work in the first place. I hope that other high schools across the District adopt this as a teaching "best practice."

As we prepare to leave for the summer, teachers throughout the city know that there will be huge upheaval in DCPS. Abolishment notices have been sent to every school, eliminating hundreds of positions citywide due to budget cuts. DCPS is sure to close one or two schools over the summer, when teachers are off duty and kids are on vacation – in other words, when parents and staff are less likely to make a public fuss.

Hopefully, we’ll also get a new superintendent over the summer. I also hope that we don’t get a one-year man, like Carl Cohn sought to be; for one year, DCPS as an institution can simply hunker down and wait out any changes a superintendent might want to initiate. The teachers’ union is beginning negotiations on a new contract. The city council and the mayor will no doubt continue their acrimonious discussions over the future of the school board throughout the summer. Returning or incoming teachers will meet a new world in September. But this has been the case for years.

The fact is, education in D.C. has been changing and will continue to change. Our lack of representation in Congress makes D.C. an education laboratory. Just today, federal vouchers have begun to percolate through the city. This change is in part due to a lack of change in educational results. DCPS hasn’t done a great job preparing kids for future success, including college, and as a result DCPS and the school board will continue to lose control of their destiny until they demonstrate competence.

What should not change for next year is our collective effort to improve the quality of the education our kids experience. This includes innovative programs like D.C. Teaching Fellows. It also includes efforts by administrators like Bell Principal Maria Tukeva to increase the level of rigor in the curriculum. Looking back at my kids’ progress this year, they’ve come a heck of a long way. There’s plenty more way to go.

What also won’t be changing is the potential of our kids, washing back to school in September like the tide. Each year I am reminded again how amazing our kids can be. I, for one, will be among the crowd of rested, eager teachers, trying to help them create the best society possible. I hope that you will rejoin me next year in the pages of The Common Denominator as the DCPS educational odyssey begins again.

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Wennersten is a third-year mathematics teacher at Bell Multicultural Senior High School and a graduate of the D.C. Teaching Fellows program. Contact him at mwenners@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2004, The Common Denominator