The I'm Linda Lutton easy Chicago I've been an education reporter for more than a decade the little kids I'm going to tell you about are 4th graders over here in Atlanta they go to. Entry on Chicago's west side as well as. They're filing into Dettori among their 1st day of school because big deal the mayor is here touting the rising test scores give the teachers a hamper what they've accomplished was the head of the public schools at the time Barbara Byrd Bennett she's here too and here comes the big idea no matter where you're from what neighborhood you call home and no matter what you dreams are in life it is right here at Penn that our children are going to get this start so that they can have that dream chase that dream capture that dream and live it there it is the idea I want to talk about it doesn't matter who you are or where you're born you can make it and school is where that happens school makes the American dream possible the 4th graders who are all sitting together pretty near the front they live in a neighborhood that really needs the American Dream on every side of their school are vacant lots and boarded up buildings all of Chicago believes in you there's no subject too hard for you to learn there's no dream you can achieve if you stay focused and persistent if you stay focused and persistent and with that she makes clear it's up to the 4th graders and every kid in the room to work hard and succeed it's up to them and William Penn Elementary. Next there's another ceremony a school bell the principal hits play and the sound system thank you so much class of this t.v. Cameras pack and the school year begins. To get ahead. That idea is that the heart of our country's identity it's why public schools were created they are the great equalizer except they're not so for decades this country's come up with reform after reform try to fix schools we've adjusted what we teach how we teach it all in an effort to get schools to do what we need them to do put poor students on more equal footing with wealthier kids and on a path out of poverty. Our countries adopted a more insistent philosophy it's sometimes called No excuses as in poverty is no excuse no excuses basically says that if schools are good enough they should be able to overcome kids economic backgrounds but it also says if schools can't achieve then something big needs to change something drastic that's definitely happening in North Lawndale 2 thirds of the schools in this neighborhood have either been closed turned into charter school. Or entire staff replaced from the principal to the lunch ladies. Of the country in this no excuses moment where everybody is on notice. Or hood and that's why I decided to come here I wanted to see up close what. School like that and I wanted to better understand this mystery of why so many schools in poor neighborhoods fail to do what we ask of them. If you haven't. Let me remind you how. They get excited about simple things like. Actually. Struck the old standardized test. But she doesn't have to the kids all know about it even though it's brand new. And they all know the other big standardized test to which they'll take 3 times this year think about this for a minute the kids in room 2 or 5 are only about an hour into 4th grade instead of imagining science experiments art projects field trips what they're looking ahead to are the standardized exams and that's not unusual this is the norm at high poverty schools like Penn because the tests there how we measure a school success it's how we decide if all the reforms we're trying are working in middle class schools where kids score well the tests feel like an afterthought but in high poverty schools like Penn they are center stage. And. I do believe you can do it but as Ms has torn looks out at her brand new 4th graders 30 kids look back at her and try to imagine this please 23 of them are boys she has the son of a former gang leader in class wonders what that will be like there's the boy who's depressed on medication aged 9 several children have parents in jail or recently released. Chapter 2 promised so much about Room 5 feels optimistic. Like the classroom. Has had phone calls him her computer man. In the computer lab. Gets the call. He has a head full of dreadlocks he looks like he could somehow be even though he's only 9 . Illustrated encyclopedias and anything tronic his current obsession. She tells me she's positive video game designer when he grows up he's going to be a software engineer something like that. So. I like thinking of what all the 4th graders might be Chelsea for instance a little girl with an outsized laugh. She's always organizing something in room to . Hold opinionated. At recess the 4th graders play with my radio am. 5. Backpack. Every time. He give a shout out to. Her On Friday he's a foster kid and my microphone. As a way to connect with her he found some way to work it in no matter what the question. About the. Pen is. In 3 years his 1st was shut down he changed again after he got put in a foster home. Positive here's what I mean. Nothing special great is just. For so many of the kids in room 5 you feel like yeah it is so possible to overcome poverty positivity by smarts. I started going to class. Oh. I want to paint a picture of the neighborhood where the kids in Room live if you want to think about it. Detroit. Or the worst parts of New Orleans a few years after Hurricane Katrina. Has been a decades long storm of disinvestment. Among. The. Most everything. Or bullet proof. Was always talking about all the characters he was building. At his apartment I wasn't sure if we'd be looking at a laptop or a desktop but I had not considered this his mom's. Yes. Turns out. Computer man no computer at her. Computer. She had upon it later in the school year I noticed an article in the newspaper about summer camps of course I thought of Tamara the story was about how popular the videogame camps are some parents were offering to pay extra more than a $1000.00 just to secure a spot for their kid in a weeklong camp in Lawndale the per capita income is $12000.00 a year that's close to the amount affluent parents spend on their children annually not for their basic needs but for enrichment musical instruments tutoring for standardized tests Minecraft camp when she can gym areas mom will buy him the latest video game Some parents worry about too much screen time for their kids she's happy Jim array is in the house away from everything outside is called. A very large in a favorite you make the characters you decide their powers you control everything that happens you play in a world completely designed. After hanging around on 16th Street for a while that sounds. Like. Chapter for normal. Ms Hanson may be headed toward 70 and retirement but she still has a way with the 4th graders. There are moments I love about Room 5 when the kids unprompted drag their chairs in toward Ms had Thorin in the whiteboard until they huddled together like a big family around the t.v. Looking at their long division or when the whole 4th grade breaks into spontaneous applause which happens a lot actually like the day a kid who's repeating this here reads. Words perfectly. I mean yeah. It's considered a pro pass she trained the principal but she's also an old school teacher her own training took place in the late 1960 s. Back then Chicago signed black students to infamous temporary classrooms specifically to avoid integration So Ms had Thorens very 1st class sure wasn't even technically in a school it was on the 1st floor of a housing project she was assigned a mentor become the best teacher possible the 1st. Was she was in the fire it was on an upper floor of the projects and at one point a mattress full of flames came crashing to the ground right by the classroom door that was enough for her mentor teacher. She never came back I had to do a. Good track with. While I was with the 4th graders in Lawndale Arnie Duncan was the u.s. Secretary of education he was in Chicago at one point to speak to a conference of education experts they filled up 5 hotels I told Duncan about the 4th graders in room 2 o 5 we talked about all their potential but we also talked about them being hungry the violence families falling apart he's seen all this would he have any message for those tours creators for that class have faith have faith and have faith work hard and you know is is tough is it is as much as the odds may seem stacked kids very similar to them have been done extraordinarily well so there's nothing that says that they can't make it is it more the more difficult role the more difficult client unquestionably Yes but you use that as fuel to to try and go to the next level. Maybe I wasn't fair to Ernie Duncan asking him what he'd tell the kids in room 205 because honestly I wouldn't tell the kids any different I tell them to work hard do your homework you can do it I'd tell them. But you can hear how that message sounds in the face of everything they're up against and I'm playing Duncan's answer here not to play gotcha but because I think it really is the message our country gives to poor kids have faith work hard and I struggle more and more with that message the longer I stay in Lawndale the problem isn't that we tell poor kids they can make it the problem is we haven't made a world for them where that's really true. This is the view from room to 5 when we come back I'm going to tell you how the 4th graders fared on their 1st round of standardized tests. The time. From w.b. Easy Chicago this is the view from room to 05 a documentary about poverty and education I'm Linda Lutton Now back to school. Turning the screws. Down. More than 100 schools in Chicago. Has already been turned over. You can feel the pressure in room. Turns out and get this information in. 8 students more than half a class barely past grade. One of her. Constant threat to everything Miss Heth or in striving to accomplish this year when you have a kid like him and every school has one you go to the parents as has tried so many times to get Karim's mom on the phone she practically knows the number by heart. Basically raising him self with help from brothers and sisters not that much. Prayer a neighbor comes up to 5. To tell her how they feel. There are lots of moments like this moments feel like they're getting a tiny bit desperate. Sometimes it felt like somebody was slowly turning the screw . And that made the principal turn the screws on the teachers and the teacher. Karim has his hands in his pockets he looks sometimes at the floor sometimes at his classmates then his godmother takes over. Last. Time. The 4th graders seem to understand that Karim is giving all he can. They say not totally sure of what the correct response is after someone apologizes for taking you're learning. Around this time has had 13 stars teaching 6 days a week their Saturday school at Penn in preparation for standardized tests when the 1st round of scores come back the news in Room 205 is not good I'm not I'm not somebody. I'm not pleased with that the teachers received the results had a staff meeting and miss half hour and was in the uncomfortable position of having the least progress in the school making her look bad in front of colleagues I'm not backing up you better move up and get with me do we understand. I'm not certain another down at the. There. And you go. Downstairs the principal has posted every student score on some giant charts that take up an entire wall maybe you're wondering how everybody did who's succeeding which kids really proved that it's true you can make it poverty is no excuse for low achieving meant everybody loves those stories about kids who defy their circumstances schools that beat the odds and they're valuable we should learn as much as possible from those examples but here's the problem those kids those schools they are outliers and focusing on the outliers distracts from a bigger truth that poor kids in the u.s. Are not beating the odds even after decades and decades of school reforms. Chapter 6 The big picture the big picture is not easy to look at it doesn't fill us with hope or match what our country is supposed to be about it looks like this the more poor kids in a school the lower the scores nothing better predicts how kids will do on standardized tests then where they sit along the spectrum of poverty and privilege Let's say we assigned all the 4th graders in the entire country to a place on a huge stairway based on their test scores so the highest scoring kids would be up on the 3rd floor and the lowest scoring kids would be in the basement nearly all poor kids are in the basement Penn despite it scores inching up for nearly a decade is in the basement that pattern it's true across the country. It's true in every state true for public schools for charter schools and the gap between how rich kids and poor kids do it's actually growing decades and fixing schools has not shaken poverty's hold if we want to make the American dream real for poor kids . We have to wrestle with. Chapter 7 The man who lived across the street I'm not the 1st person to be looking at poverty from this very spot. Where. Martin Luther King Jr moved. Right across the street from William Penn kitty corner from the playground. For. The door to the street when Lock this was after he'd won the Nobel Peace Prize after Birmingham and Selma now his target was poverty he wanted an end to what he called slum jobs slum wages slum schools a man does not have a good. Man you're not. Sure wal. King wanted the government to battle poverty head on he called for a huge increase to the minimum wage and massive investment in neighborhoods like this one billions of dollars he wanted guarantees that no one would live below a certain income. And that income should be high he said not low King said this would be the hardest part of the civil rights movement. Is one of the only businesses that's hung 50 years neighborhood legend has it Dr King bought his newspaper here there are a bunch of black and white photographs in the pharmacy of what the neighborhood looked like back then they show a bustling 16th Street grocery stores department stores dentists' nightclubs to me the astounding thing about those pictures is how good luck I have to keep telling myself this was the slum King was trying to end it looked so much better than 16th Street today. The poverty rate is higher in Lawndale today than it was in 1966 the unemployment rate is that Great Depression levels 75 percent. Older than age 16 don't have a job. But the 4th graders won't hear it that lived across the street they won't hear anything about poverty they won't hear that King said people are poor because wages are low because discrimination limits opportunity because schools are underfunded. Because of. He told people. We're going to take from. This is the view from room to 05 I'm Linda Lutton and this is a close up look at poverty and American education this is chapter 8 cutting corners I am if anyone can help North Lawndale kids get out of poverty it should be Cheryl more. Principal sometime this community I'm not finding can't you know most kids are me. Alice now she knows what it's like TAF to double up with relatives who are barely better off than you are she still remembers the day an abusive boyfriend stabbed her mom. On the street. When it happened there were the gangs that lured her brother despite all that Cheryl more would go on to become valedictorian at her Westside high school she made it to Illinois best public university today she has her doctorate. Is the sort of trajectory we believe is possible we want her story to be everybody's story but when you hang out at Penn long enough you see the complicated dance Dr Ali and the teachers do to try to make Penn live up to its promise like she hired an extra 3rd grade teacher to keep class sizes down but that no means artist taught by 2 parents and music is taught by a contractor. The instrument they're studying today is the orange Home Depot 5 gallon bucket. Doesn't like coming to class. After all he resents having to cut corners and her students need so much more there are 367 kids at Penn one of the neediest schools in the city and just 18 get time with a social worker not a single one of the 4th graders in room 5 qualifies pens budget is like a lot of public school budgets never feels like enough but even if Penn had all the resources. If there were. Even a little orchestra the way Dr magic the world would be. There would still be no fruit. No jobs still no parent to Kareem The Boy Who. Lots of kids this age are so easy to love their big hearts show through right away Kareem hides under his hoodie one word answers. He loved the idea of taking my tape recorder home but he was guarded even when he was all by himself sports basketball. I have to say. Little bits of Chremes history have appeared from time to time in the newspaper one headline mother of 6 charged with murder of boyfriend it's a story about Chremes mom allegedly killing her boyfriend with a steak knife all 6 kids at home the youngest of those was Kareem playing. In. Every time I come by room 205 Kareem is getting in trouble today he's been put out of class I'm still walking down the hall. And I'm not coming Kareem says he slowly starts to cry he's standing against the wall in the hallway under his hood and calls the security guard to get him to class way. Down. Kareem is really. Sopping now a it. To me it seems so obvious that something else is going on something beyond being put out of class and I think Ms has thought and probably sees that too but she has a broader mission 30 kids lives by now I know a lot of things that could be making creme cry maybe it's the unanswered Christmas letter he sent to his dad in prison is Catherine helped him write that maybe it's his mom's addiction to leave a drug that's all over Lawndale on the day she's supposed to check into rehab she can't make it only God can judge me for t. Shirt says that a. Little bit. And you still you know expected to achieve in the midst of the chaos the goals all on a daily basis one morning a guy posing as a parent walked into Penn stole a teacher's cellphone off her desk and left the next day in a move that felt audacious even for 16th Street a woman tried to sell the phone back to the teacher she wanted a 100 bucks Pen called the police I don't want my money here. We have this idea that schools can be radically different from the communities they're sitting in we want schools to be havens and Penn really is a haven in many respects but schools are not impervious Penn called the police 22 times in the school year I was there wrap your head around that for a minute it's about once every other week at a grammar school one day police came to Penn for a different reason they came for Kareem his brother and sister a foster care worker was there she was. Bringing them to an emergency shelter there was one police officer purchased in case they ran pens assistant principal called the kids out of class. Couldn't watch she stayed in her office. She convinced their new foster mom to bring them back to pen for school Chapter 9 make it happen. In the spring when Principal Ali goes to a performance management session with district officials they pick apart everything that can possibly be measured at Pen test scores attendance rates all down to the 10th of a percentage point and when she gets back Dr all the shares a torrent of frustration with her assistant principal you know they don't understand. 100 percent attendance would be perfect if we had perfect families you know. You know you got to make it happen. Make it happen how do we do it. The week before the big park test I stopped at a staff meeting it was in the principal's office the 3rd 4th and 5th grade teachers were gathered including this half hour and the topic was