Statement of Purpose
I was born in a city with one of the nation’s worst public school systems. The District of Columbia Public School district has been under an education reform for the past decade and there has been a lot of work to bring justice to the students there. That is where I started – and from there I still found myself enrolled in low performing schools without a solid budget or plan. Regardless of the status of my school and the budget it’s district has created, I was able to graduate from high school and attend a four-year university in one of the most ethically diverse cities in our country. This is the kind of opportunity I want for all children that come from the city like me. I have been inspired by all of my educators to pursue a career in teaching and I am motivated to create this opportunity for all students in my classroom. I first became familiar with UCLA’s Teacher Education Program in 2015 when I heard about their partnership with LAUSD and the UCLA community school. I do not think I have been more inspired to become an educator than when I heard about this new way of looking at public education. Hearing the children’s testimonials about the school and the doors it opened for them really got me interested in social justice and creating better learning environments for students. For me, it was never about the reputation of the school I was in but the effort put forth by all of my teachers. I believe that this is what a lot of schools are lacking
More likely to serve low income students is urban public schools which who are reportedly failing to educate the students they serve. In urban public schools, Numerous understudies and their families are living with serious financial disservice. Students are not proven to be the problem. The education that urban students in government funded schools get is evidently insufficient. To be a school that promotes a good academic status of students, you can’t lack basic social utilities. Poverty in urban schools can be fixed. A feature that characterizes effective schools involves coordination instruction among teachers which contributed to the weak academic performance of low income students. You must ask yourself what would be the best solution to help these students succeed? Because urban school are being run badly, they are failing. Improvement within management lies a solution. According to Chicago Tribune in the news article” Economic Inequality: The real cause of the urban school problem” findings show that the root of the problems facing urban schools can be found in gradual but extremely powerful changes in the nation's economy It takes a comfortable environment, suitable effective committed teachers, more use of instructional practices consistently and available necessities and needs. The most important statistic provided is the Growing economic inequality contributes in a multitude of ways to a widening gulf between the educational outcomes of rich and poor
As explained in Diane Ravitch's article, “American Schools in CRISIS,” educators are provided with little job security under Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Obama's Race to the Top educational reform initiatives; where teachers can be fired based on poor standardized test scores from their students (50). The majority of new teachers already quit within five years of entering the field; “demoralized” (Ravitch 50) by the effects of such high stakes and low resources (Ravitch 52). To combat this figure, many states have decreased the requirements for becoming a teacher, even allowing online licensure in Texas (Ravitch 51). To lower the standards of the “conservators of our common future” (Barber 122) is an irresponsible practice that must be reversed if students are to succeed. Barber proposes paying early childhood educators as much as lawyers to attract better teachers. Higher wages would encourage more ambitious individuals to enter the fields of primary and secondary education. Without highly-trained and intelligent educators, who are dedicated to progress and change, students will continue to stumble through a broken system, woefully unprepared for the task of becoming productive citizens.
I seek to join Teach for America to give back to low income communities I have always had a passion to serve my community, rather if it was by volunteering at the local Boys and Girls Club, visiting the elderly, or lending a helping hand at Habitat for Humanity. If given the opportunity to join Teach for America I would be able to not only serve a local community but also teach the future leaders of America. I believe that a quality education should not be upon the basis of race or family income, but from the quality of the educator that comes in contact with each child. It is as if the quality of the teacher can somehow have an everlasting effect on the students that he or she comes in contact with. It is an endless cycle of an unmotivated and uncaring teacher’s coming into school districts and helping to further hinder the students. The
Chicago’s budget crisis has been one of the most unfortunate events of the decade. As a former student of Chicago Public Schools, myself and other students wanted the best for our education, but CPS school teachers and faculty are given the bad news that the City Council thinks we demand too much. Resulting in the Chicago Teachers Union strike of 2012, budget cuts, and many other events impacting things within the schools, it is no longer new to students, who also encounter what goes on outside, such as political news or neighborhood violence. Those in schools feel that it has been the place to be and to feel secure. Now that I have recently graduated, I have encountered a similar want for the best for my education through my college. As
I participate in a tutoring program for elementary students in Dorchester, an underserved community in Boston. Working with the children has helped me eliminate preconceived ideas that led me to believe schools were bad because the parents did not pay enough attention to their children's educations. I now realize that the problems in education have more to do with the amount of funding that goes into certain schools. Ignorance and distance from reality caused me to believe that struggling neighborhoods inherently produce bad students. I now understand that the problems within the school do not reflect the students’ abilities.
I 'm currently serving as a 2013 Corps member for Teach For America. I joined teach for America because I believe in their mission that all students deserve an equal an excellent education. I also joined because they work with schools where students are growing up in poverty and low income communities; a resemblance of my past. You see, we become our worst critics and even the mir image of success vanishes when our thoughts become clouded with fantasies; imaginative thoughts of the impossible. I longed for success, making it clear that the riches were of no importance to me. To others it appeared that I yes she, is writing her own story; untold was the beginning.
With a disparity in resources resulting from NCLB, schools in the less wealthy areas tend to suffer the most: “Unlike most countries that fund schools centrally and equally, the wealthiest U.S. public schools spend at least 10 times more than the poorest schools-ranging from over $30,000 per pupil to only $3,000 (Darling-Hammond)”. A teacher who has spent years in school to earn a degree is far less likely to want to spend their career in a school that is under funded, under staffed, overcrowded and labeled ‘failing’. This in turn meant that the best educated, best prepared and most dedicated teachers would concentrate in the most highly resourced schools, leaving underperforming
My interest in education was sparked after reading an article "America's broken bootstraps" by George F. Will. The article and my classes led me to learn more about justice and inequality in the United States and discovering the role education plays in perpetuating the system.
According to the state report card, Salem Elementary School’s socioeconomic status of students is strongly high in poverty. Correspondingly, all of the students enrolled in Salem also have some type of economic disadvantage. As discussed in our EDTE 2020 class, high poverty areas tend to have teachers “with less experience”, who do not have “proper certification”, or who have a “high turnover rate”. This is the complete opposite at Salem, as it’s stated on the report card that all teachers have a bachelor and a master’s degree, with over 72% of teachers being
The issue of teacher shortage today is continuing to grow. The effects of the achievement gap are reaching the teachers, not just the students: “...good administrators and teachers, who are doing their best under difficult circumstances, will be driven out of the profession…,” (Boyd-Zaharias 41). The achievement gap is part of the reason teachers feel they are underpaid, which happens to be one of the leading cause in teacher shortage considering, “Teachers were paid two percent less [than comparable workers] in 1994, but by 2015 the wage penalty rose to 17 percent,” (Long). Being a teacher requires passion in order to stay in the field, especially if the money in teaching is decreasing. Money is an important aspect for people when it comes to their careers, therefore, fewer people want to become teachers. This lack of teachers and the lack of college students studying to become a teacher leads to unqualified teachers and larger classroom sizes (Ostroff). Both of these causes are eventually affecting students’ learning environments. I chose this issue in education for my project because I have personally felt these effects, and I know others who have as well. As a future educator, I want to see better wages and better benefits, but this can only happen with qualified, passionate teachers. I plan on being one of them, and I plan on sparking a change. I am a future educator fighting to end teacher shortage.
After many years in the classroom and several as a facilitator, there were many situations that I have observed and or been a part of that did not make me happy I found myself saying what I would have said or done if I was the principal of the school. My heart began to break for those students that were in classes with teachers that did not seem to really care about whether or not the students actually got it but more so doing the bare minimum to say that the skill had been taught. I saw children struggle. I saw children and parents with hurt feelings and then angered by the way a teacher had treated or talked to them. I even saw some teachers that just did not care. I wanted that to change. For years I put off going back to school. I got my Masters in Education right after I
My vision for high-quality education in urban schools is to strengthen the capacities of students to act progressively on their own behalf through the acquisition of relevant knowledge, useful skills, and appropriate attitudes. Complementary to this, I believe that a quality education is one that focuses on the whole child. This approach allows schools to integrate fully with their communities in order to access a wide range of services to support the educational development for their students. Equally important, is the need to ensure access to quality teachers, effective learning tools, and professional development opportunities. These factors contribute to the ability of faculty and staff to establish a safe, supportive learning environment
In today’s economic environment even the wealthiest states and districts are having to cut funding for education, while districts which were already teetering on the edge are now in an even worse position. In some schools children have to face not having enough books, paper for copies, severe overcrowding,
Ideally, when I graduate, I would like to enter the credential program at Cal Poly Pomona. As an English Education major, I feel like this is the next logical step for me as I seek to move forward on my path of becoming a teacher. The opportunities that await me in the credential program truly excite me because I have always found my studies of English Education to be very rewarding and purposeful. I have found this to be especially true now because I am currently in the process of conducting observation hours at local high schools in Pomona as part of my English Education curriculum. When I am in the classroom, I immediately feel a sense of joy, purpose, and productivity. Outside of the classroom, I do have experience teaching as a leader for a club on campus; I am a Woman’s Bible Study Leader for Cal Poly Cru and I have found this experience of teaching college students to be the most exciting, challenging, and rewarding experience I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of. It can become overwhelming as doubts and deadlines tend to sneak in on me from time to time, but I know that being a teacher is worth every ounce of pressure because of the positive impact that a teacher has the ability to make on a student. There is an incredible statistic that states that “On average a teacher affects 3,000 children over the course of their career” (Bickley). This opportunity stirs my heart like nothing else because when I was in high school, I had an incredible teacher named
The Woodson Foundation, a large nonprofit social service agency, is teaming up with the public school system in Washington, D.C, to improve student outcomes. It appears the schools have problems with truancy, low student performance and crime. The teachers are discouraged to help students due to the disrespect and behavioral issues in the classroom. The turnover rate for the best teachers is high, they tend to leave and go to schools that aren’t as troubled (629).