Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

Pedro de Costa’s recent EPI blog post connected the dots between under-resourced schools, underpaid teachers, and the teacher shortage that exists in schools serving children raised in poverty. This poignant quote from a presentation given by Joy Kirk, a middle-school teacher from Frederick (VA) teacher illustrates the daunting challenges that face teachers in under-resourced schools:

….okay, we know so and so doesn’t have water, how can we get them into school early and maybe get them down to the gym? As teachers, you’re making these little baskets and you’re letting this kid come to class 20 minutes late and the other kids are wondering but it’s because as teachers you know they don’t have water right now and you’ve got to do something—but you don’t want them to stand out.

“But as the problem began to grow, especially through the recession, we began to recognize this was more than just a few teachers on a team, or a few teachers in a school. It’s a community issue and we need to step up.

“We need the mental health workers, we need the school psychologists. We have some of our schools now that now offer laundry service and the kids can bring in clothes to do their laundry, so they’re not ‘that’ kid.”

The bottom line, as Ms. Kirk and Mr. de Costa infer, is that schools are the last line of defense in the War on Poverty that was launched with insufficient funds, insufficient “soldiers”, and insufficient “armaments” from the outset… and so the problems that students bring to the classroom persist and the gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening.