How America's public schools keep kids in poverty | Kandice Sumner

618,817 views ・ 2016-11-28

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:12
I want to talk to you about my kids.
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Now, I know everyone thinks that their kid is the most fantastic,
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the most beautiful kid that ever lived.
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But mine really are.
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(Laughter)
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I have 696 kids,
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and they are the most intelligent, inventive, innovative,
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brilliant and powerful kids that you'll ever meet.
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Any student I've had the honor of teaching in my classroom is my kid.
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However, because their "real" parents aren't rich
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and, I argue, because they are mostly of color,
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they will seldom get to see in themselves
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the awesomeness that I see in them.
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Because what I see in them is myself --
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or what would have been myself.
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I am the daughter of two hardworking,
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college-educated, African-American parents
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who chose careers as public servants:
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my father, a minister; my mother, an educator.
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Wealth was never the primary ambition in our house.
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Because of this lack of wealth,
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we lived in a neighborhood that lacked wealth,
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and henceforth a school system that lacked wealth.
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Luckily, however, we struck the educational jackpot
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in a voluntary desegregation program
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that buses inner-city kids -- black and brown --
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out to suburban schools -- rich and white.
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At five years old, I had to take an hour-long bus ride
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to a faraway place
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to get a better education.
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At five years old, I thought everyone had a life just like mine.
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I thought everyone went to school
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and were the only ones using the brown crayons
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to color in their family portraits,
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while everyone else was using the peach-colored ones.
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At five years old, I thought everyone was just like me.
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But as I got older, I started noticing things, like:
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How come my neighborhood friend don't have to wake up
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at five o'clock in the morning,
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and go to a school that's an hour away?
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How come I'm learning to play the violin
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while my neighborhood friends don't even have a music class?
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Why were my neighborhood friends learning and reading material
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that I had done two to three years prior?
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See, as I got older,
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I started to have this unlawful feeling in my belly,
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like I was doing something that I wasn't supposed to be doing;
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taking something that wasn't mine;
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receiving a gift,
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but with someone else's name on it.
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All these amazing things that I was being exposed to
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and experiencing,
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I felt I wasn't really supposed to have.
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I wasn't supposed to have a library, fully equipped athletic facilities,
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or safe fields to play in.
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I wasn't supposed to have theatre departments
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with seasonal plays and concerts --
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digital, visual, performing arts.
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I wasn't supposed to have fully resourced biology or chemistry labs,
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school buses that brought me door-to-door,
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freshly prepared school lunches
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or even air conditioning.
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These are things my kids don't get.
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You see, as I got older,
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while I was grateful for this amazing opportunity
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that I was being given,
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there was this ever-present pang of:
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But what about everyone else?
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There are thousands of other kids just like me,
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who deserve this, too.
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Why doesn't everyone get this?
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Why is a high-quality education only exclusive to the rich?
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It was like I had some sort of survivor's remorse.
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All of my neighborhood friends were experiencing
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an educational train wreck
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that I was saved from through a bus ride.
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I was like an educational Moses screaming,
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"Let my people go ...
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to high-quality schools!"
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(Laughter)
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I'd seen firsthand how the other half was being treated and educated.
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I'd seen the educational promised land,
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and I could not for the life of me justify the disparity.
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I now teach in the very same school system from which I sought refuge.
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I know firsthand the tools that were given to me as a student,
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and now as a teacher, I don't have access to those same tools
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to give my students.
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There have been countless nights when I've cried in frustration,
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anger
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and sorrow,
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because I can't teach my kids the way that I was taught,
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because I don't have access to the same resources or tools
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that were used to teach me.
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My kids deserve so much better.
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We sit and we keep banging our heads against this term:
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"Achievement gap, achievement gap!"
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Is it really that hard to understand
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why these kids perform well and these kids don't?
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I mean, really.
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I think we've got it all wrong.
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I think we,
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as Gloria Ladson-Billings says,
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should flip our paradigm and our language and call it what it really is.
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It's not an achievement gap;
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it's an education debt,
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for all of the foregone schooling resources that were never invested
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in the education of the black and brown child over time.
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A little-known secret in American history
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is that the only American institution created specifically for people of color
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is the American slave trade --
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and some would argue the prison system,
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but that's another topic for another TED Talk.
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(Laughter)
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The public school system of this country was built, bought and paid for
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using commerce generated from the slave trade and slave labor.
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While African-Americans were enslaved and prohibited from schooling,
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their labor established the very institution
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from which they were excluded.
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Ever since then, every court case, educational policy, reform,
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has been an attempt to retrofit the design,
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rather than just stopping and acknowledging:
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we've had it all wrong from the beginning.
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An oversimplification of American educational history.
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All right, just bear with me.
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Blacks were kept out -- you know, the whole slavery thing.
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With the help of philanthropic white people,
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they built their own schools.
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Separate but equal was OK.
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But while we all know things were indeed separate,
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they were in no ways equal.
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Enter Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas in 1954;
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legal separation of the races is now illegal.
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But very few people pay attention to all of the court cases since then,
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that have undone the educational promised land for every child
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that Brown v. Board intended.
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Some argue that today our schools are now more segregated
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than they ever were before we tried to desegregate them in the first place.
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Teaching my kids about desegregation, the Little Rock Nine,
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the Civil Rights Movement,
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is a real awkward moment in my classroom,
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when I have to hear the voice of a child ask,
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"If schools were desegregated in 1954,
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how come there are no white kids here?"
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(Laughter)
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These kids aren't dumb.
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They know exactly what's happening,
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and what's not.
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They know that when it comes to schooling,
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black lives don't matter
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and they never have.
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For years, I tried desperately to cultivate in my kids a love of reading.
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I'd amassed a modest classroom library
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of books I'd accumulated from secondhand shops,
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thrift stores, attics -- you know.
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But whenever I said those dreadful words,
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"Take out a book and read,"
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you'd think I'd just declared war.
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It was torture.
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One day,
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after I'd heard about this website called DonorsChoose,
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where classroom teachers create wish lists
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of items they need for their classroom
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and anonymous donors fulfill them,
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I figured I'd go out on a limb and just make a wish list
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of the teenager's dream library.
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Over 200 brand-new books were sent to my room piece by piece.
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Every day there were new deliveries and my kids would exclaim with glee,
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"This feels like Christmas!"
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(Laughter)
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Then they'd say,
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"Ms. Sumner, where did these books come from?"
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And then I'd reply,
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"Strangers from all over the country wanted you to have these."
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And then they'd say, almost suspiciously,
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"But they're brand-new."
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(Laughter)
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To which I'd reply,
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"You deserve brand-new books."
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The whole experience hit home for me when one of my girls,
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as she peeled open a crisp paperback said,
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"Ms. Sumner -- you know, I figured you bought these books,
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'cause you teachers are always buying us stuff.
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But to know that a stranger, someone I don't even know,
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cares this much about me
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is pretty cool."
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Knowing that strangers will take care of you
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is a privilege my kids aren't afforded.
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Ever since the donation,
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there has been a steady stream of kids signing out books to take home,
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and then returning them with the exclamation,
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"This one was good!"
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(Laughter)
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Now when I say, "Take out a book and read,"
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kids rush to my library.
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It wasn't that they didn't want to read,
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but instead, they'd gladly read if the resources were there.
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Institutionally speaking,
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our public school system has never done right by the black and brown child.
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We keep focusing on the end results
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or test results,
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and getting frustrated.
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We get to a catastrophe and we wonder,
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"How did it get so bad? How did we get here?"
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Really?
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If you neglect a child long enough,
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you no longer have the right to be surprised
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when things don't turn out well.
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Stop being perplexed
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or confused
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or befuddled
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by the achievement gap,
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the income gap,
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the incarceration rates,
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or whatever socioeconomic disparity is the new "it" term for the moment.
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The problems we have as a country
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are the problems we created as a country.
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The quality of your education is directly proportionate
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to your access to college,
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your access to jobs,
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your access to the future.
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Until we live in a world where every kid can get a high-quality education
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no matter where they live,
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or the color of their skin,
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there are things we can do on a macro level.
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School funding should not be decided by property taxes
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or some funky economic equation
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where rich kids continue to benefit from state aid,
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while poor kids are continuously having food and resources
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taken from their mouths.
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Governors, senators, mayors, city council members --
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if we're going to call public education public education,
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then it should be just that.
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Otherwise, we should call it what it really is:
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poverty insurance.
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"Public education:
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keeping poor kids poor since 1954."
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(Laughter)
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If we really, as a country, believe that education is the "great equalizer,"
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then it should be just that: equal and equitable.
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Until then, there's no democracy in our democratic education.
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On a mezzo level:
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historically speaking, the education of the black and brown child
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has always depended on the philanthropy of others.
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And unfortunately, today it still does.
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If your son or daughter or niece or nephew or neighbor
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or little Timmy down the street
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goes to an affluent school,
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challenge your school committee to adopt an impoverished school
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or an impoverished classroom.
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Close the divide by engaging in communication
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and relationships that matter.
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When resources are shared,
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they're not divided;
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they're multiplied.
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And on a micro level:
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if you're a human being,
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donate.
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Time, money, resources, opportunities --
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whatever is in your heart.
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There are websites like DonorsChoose
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that recognize the disparity
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and actually want to do something about it.
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What is a carpenter with no tools?
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What is an actress with no stage?
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What is a scientist with no laboratory?
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What is a doctor with no equipment?
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I'll tell you:
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they're my kids.
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Shouldn't they be your kids, too?
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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