Free Radical by Michelle Rhee

AIDS. Another student had been sexually abused by multiple men over many years, and now she was living with her drunk grandmother, who neglected her. More than a few came to school hungry. These were children who had life stories that I couldn’t even imagine. Despite all that they came to school every day. They’d come early, and stay late. They came on the weekends. They worked hard. They fought through all the noise and the people telling them, “Don’t do what that Chinese lady is telling you to—come out and play instead.” They’d do their two hours of homework. And they went from being at the bottom to being at the top academically.
    It was then that the light went on for me: I realized that their low academic achievement levels weren’t about their potential or their ability or anything else. It had to do with what I was doing as a teacher, what we were doing as a school, and the expectations that we set for them. That’s what it was all about.
    The parents understood. When I was a first-year teacher, the savviest parents took their kids out of my classroom. They knew my classroom was out of control. But by the end of my third year, the parents were requesting their kids be assigned to my class. When word got out that I might be leaving Harlem Park, many said, “You can’t leave. My baby is coming into the third grade. You have to teach her.”
    I GOT SERIOUS ABOUT leaving Harlem Park in the winter of my third year.
    I was happy and doing well as a teacher. My principal, Linda Carter, recognized our success and appreciated our work. Wyatt Coger, principal of the entire Harlem Park campus, which included a middle school, offered me the chance to become a lead teacher. I could stay and improve outcomes for students, one class at a time.
    But I was unsettled by much of what I had experienced at Harlem Park. I was outraged at the condition of the school, the low expectations for the students, and the poor quality of education in some of the classrooms. On one hand, I was happy that I was able to make progress with my students, but I wondered, “Why isn’t this happening everywhere?”
    I also started researching urban schools nationwide, and what I found disturbed me even more. There were Harlem Parks in every city across the country. Generations of children were getting shortchanged. I could not stand for that.
    I started considering graduate school. I wrestled with the decision and applied to several law schools and, on a whim, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. I knew I could stay in Baltimore and have an impact on this group of kids, but I began to believe that public policy had to change: how we run schools and select our teachers, how we train them, how they relate to the students—so much had to change for all kids who look like my kids to have an equal shake in life.
    The Kennedy School admitted me, and I decided to accept. I knew I wanted to have a broader impact on education reform and policy. I also was terribly sad, especially during and after the Cleveland trip. I had gotten to know the kids and their parents better. It focused me on how much the kids deserved and how they could blossom, if they were given a chance.
    I had no idea what the Kennedy School would bring, but I came away from Harlem Park with a combination of rage at the broken system and belief in every child’s ability to learn—with a great teacher.

3
    Recruiting Teachers
    I figured I had complied with my mother’s wishes—twice—when I earned degrees from Cornell and Harvard. But when I described my plans to start a business that would supply teachers to public schools, Inza was not impressed.
    â€œWhat do you know about starting a company?” she asked. “Why would someone think you could do that?”
    Many American mothers today would see this line of questioning as hurtful, certainly not confidence building. Not so with Inza. She was a