Winning High School Proves Potential of Public Education

 

What an honor it would be to have the President of the United States speak at your high school graduation. Forget the politics; forget the partisanship; forget the polarization that has become characteristic of the age. The honor comes in the gravity of the occasion.

Booker T. Washington (BTW), a high school of 500 students in south Memphis that was recently awarded this honor, is part of a story that gives hope to all of those who strongly support public education. BTW, which has produced several well-known alumni, including former NAACP director Benjamin Hooks, beat out five other schools to win the honor.

If there were to be a documentary made on BTW, its title might pertain to the classic theme of overcoming adversity. Five years ago, in 2006, only 53% of students graduated from BTW, located at 715 S. Lauderdale in the impoverished 38126 zip code. In those five years, the number of students living in poverty has increased from 77 to 95 percent, as the median annual income in the area is only $11,000 in the nation’s seventh poorest major city, according the 2010 U.S. Census data. The area has the 14^th highest crime rate in the nation.

When the publicly-funded housing project Cleaborn Homes was demolished to create mixed-income communities in mid-April 2011, 20 percent of BTW’s students had to do what educators must do in the classroom every day when something does not go as planned: adjust. The poignant video that helped the school win the Race to the Top Commencement Challenge featured a BTW student named Christopher weeping as he watched his home being destroyed.

Under the direction of young but no-nonsense principal Alisha Kiner, who was promoted from assistant principal in 2004, the school has made a turnaround. Test scores have increased dramatically, and the school’s graduation rate is now 81.6 percent. Between 2005 and 2010, the number of graduates attending college increased from four percent to 70 percent. The school now offers more vocational and Advanced Placement classes than before, and has implemented freshman academies to intervene at the earliest stage of high school, before students get lost in the labyrinth of failure.

What a reward that must have been for those 150 graduates who sat arrayed in their gowns and mortarboards. The President, who overcame great adversity in order to reach success, spoke to them about the value of education: “I’m standing here as President because of the education that I received... Education made all the difference in my life.”

He reminded them that education is important for several reasons and for several outcomes: critical thinking, discipline, self-improvement, and collective national success. “I remember,” he said, “we used to ask our teachers, ‘Why am I going to need algebra?’ Well, you may not have to solve for x to get a good job or to be a good parent. But you will need to think through tough problems. You’ll need to think on your feet. You’ll need to know how to gather facts and evaluate information. So, math teachers, you can tell your students that the President says they need algebra.” President Obama encouraged graduates to keep pushing, not to allow setbacks to crush determination, and to make their own “mark on the world.”

As Booker T. Washington, the school’s eponymous hero, once said, featured in the contest video, “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” It is, as these graduates have demonstrated, not quite enough to push forward with a “No Child Left Behind” mentality. We must look toward the other end of the spectrum and do our best to help students strive for academic excellence, even against great odds, as the graduates of Booker T. Washington High School have certainly achieved.