Why I Went Crazy and Moved to the 115 Degree Desert

Today it was about 110 degrees in the shade here in Arizona. I was in a somewhat dilapidated high school (Agua Fria High School, home of the Owls) out in the 'burbs in the West Valley, barely conscious, sitting through 12 hours (my days start at 5 AM when I wake up and end at 5 PM when we get back to the ASU dorms) of educational sessions and seminars.

Basically, I'm learning how to be a teacher in 5 weeks. A normal person takes 4 years to do this.

And when I am done the 12+ hours days of Institute, what next? Then I move into my permanent classroom at Pioneer Preparatory School, in the Maryvale neighborhood of western Phoenix. To quote Wikipedia (which I will never let my students do but which saved my ass in college), "Since the 1980s, Maryvale had seen a significant growth in violent crime and gang membership. As with other maligned sections of Phoenix, many gangs took advantage of the area's open-air apartment complexes to set up enclosed drug markets that became extremely dangerous and difficult for police to monitor...[a] shift in police philosophy included embedding Phoenix Gang Unit officers in the [neighborhood], placing more sophisticated resources regularly in what one crime analysis described as 'an area saturated with gang members.' "

This is what my students will deal with every day; this is what I have to compete against for their attention.

Why am I here?

The education gap in Arizona is huge. Arizona traditionally ranks in the bottom 5 states in all academic measures; only California, Nevada, Mississippi, and the District of Columbia have worse test scores. Only 5% of 9th graders who enter Arizona public high schools graduate college 8 years later.

The problem is big. And the resources to fix it are small. Pitifully so. The state budget gap was so large last year that all stimulus money had to be used to pay off existing debt. The foreclosure crisis hit Arizona hard; I've seen nice 4-bedroom homes in tony Mesa or north Phoenix on the market for about $60,000. The money evaporated when the housing bubble burst, and the state is reeling from the results.

The expectations are low. Standards for Arizona teachers, based on passing teacher assessment scores, are among the lowest in the nation (tied with Oregon), and standards for students are much, much lower.

I'm not a teacher. But I've been blessed to have had damn good ones over the past 21 years. And I've achieved because of them, and because of odds that were stacked drastically in my favor. I've always lived in the right neighborhoods, gone to the right schools, and have been gifted with parents willing, and able, to do anything to help me succeed.

Not all kids have those opportunities, or the odds in their favor; few of the kids in Maryvale do. If they achieve, it's in spite of the odds, not because of them (I can't take credit for that line...I know I read it somewhere, but I firmly believe it nonetheless).

I can't sit idly by and let my talents and passion rot in a cubicle somewhere while the cycle of low expectations and the vicious injustice of the educational achievement gap eat neighborhoods like Maryvale alive. I've had great opportunities in my life; had I been born about a half mile south on Charles Street in Baltimore City instead of Baltimore County, that probably wouldn't have been true. But it is, and it's time that I pay it forward, put my gifts, passions, and talents to good use, and become part of a movement.

That's why I joined Teach for America - I believe I have what it takes to become not a good teacher, but a great teacher, like the ones I had, and the ones that all kids, rich, poor, white, black, brown, or something in between, deserve.

So why am I here? Because I can't not be.

peace and love from the grand canyon state,

pb