I’ve been unemployed for two years. TWO YEARS! Friends, family, and acquaintances can’t believe it, neither can I; like my 92 year-old aunt says, “All that education and you can’t find a job, ump, ump, ump.”
Well, this stupefying chase for employment has taught me a few things: 1) A doctorate in education is the ghetto of advanced degrees, and all this chatter about having “high expectations” is just that: talk. 2) It’s not good to be fat and looking for a job. 3) Charter schools are no better than your average community schools and in some cases worst. 4) It’s not good to be old and looking for a job. 5) Black faces in high places don’t mean good things for other Black folks, but I already knew that.
Because I had been doing what I was meant to do for the last twenty years, I’d been on the pollen path: doors opened, friendships were made; I climbed the economic and educational ladder. But in 2005, I decided to run for teacher representative on the Local School Council and promised to tell the truth as I knew it. That didn’t do go over too well. Eventually, I left Chicago Public Schools to work for a charter school. There I found deep and far reaching deception (changing test scores was part of the lying), the exploitation of cheap labor, and no answers to the nagging problem of educating urban youth. Since I was still in truth telling mode, that job only lasted a year and thus began this long and frustrating search.
In March of 2009, having been unemployed a few months, I was told by a friend to submit a resume to the brand new Jesuit high school being built on the West Side of Chicago. I did and wham: got an interview to become an assistant principal. The principal had heard good things about me. I answered his questions with my usual candor and we clicked. The next interview was with the faculty. I had lunch with them, was genuinely interested in their concerns; we clicked. Then there was the meeting with the head Jesuit. I candidly answered and asked questions. At one point, the Father rolled his chair ten feet away from me and looked like he was talking to the devil . I can’t for the life of me remember what I said. Anyway, one of my former students was working there and had mentioned I was the catalyst for her and some of her classmates forming the New Black Panther Party. Needless to say, I didn't get the job.
Afterward there were interviews in Wisconsin. One principal of a charter school in Milwaukee told me point blank that it was too expensive to hire me as a high school English teacher This she admitted when I asked her how I stacked up to other candidates; she gave me some bullshit answer, and I gave her a look that said don’t play with me. Over time I discovered that salary was indeed a problem; even though I’m willing to work for a less, a lot less. Cash strapped municipalities and get-a-teacher-cheap charter schools are not able or willing to pay for the great teachers they claim they want. As witnessed by my application for teacher at a charter school on the South Side of Chicago. Having seen the position posted many times, having submitted an application each time, and after having confirmed that I’d be willing to work for the salary quoted, I finally got the HR person to arrange an interview. The interview consisted of teaching a class of sophomores who had run the original teacher way. To make it more difficult, they had me teaching these folks on a Friday afternoon. The person observing me was in and out, and when he was in, his head was in his laptop. I have a whole other entry I’m going to post on this experience, but here I’ll admit at one point I resorted to telling the class to shut up.
Recently, I had a much more humiliating job seeking experience. One night a friend called and told me that she told a friend of hers about me, and he wanted me to give him a call. He was a CPS assistant principal, Dr. Young. I called right away. We had a good conversation wherein he revealed that he was deciding whether he’d leave CPS and become a principal of a charter high school. He told me to send him a cover letter and my resume. This I did right away. Weeks passed, and again late one night my girl friend called to tell me to call Dr. Young immediately. I did and he told me to come to an interview 11:30 the next day. I arrived in a timely fashion and sat there for a span of nearly three hours with other candidates for the position. When finally granted the interview, I enthusiastically stated my credentials and declared that it was fated I should teach there, for in fact, the now charter high school was then, some 40 years ago, the very first elementary school I attended, located in that fateful housing project my family had escaped. At this interview Dr. Young, a Black man, and two white men asked me questions. The older and younger white men quite clearly liked me; it was Dr. Young, my friend’s friend, the man who arranged the whole thing who seemed to have a problem, for he was quite standoffish. Well, again, weeks passed, and Young leaves me a message one evening about a second 9:30 A.M. interview. I arrive to find me and a young white man have been scheduled for the same time regarding the same position. He keeps us both waiting two hours. They interview the young man first. When it's my turn, I again happily engage the old white man, and now a young white woman, and Dr. Young spends the interview behind his desk working at a computer. At the end of the interview, the old white man is clearly glad to have met me again. David Young barely looks my way when informing me that he or his assistant will call to let me know the outcome. To this day I have not heard from either him or his assistant.
Well, all this happened more than two years ago! Thank God!! The search ended and is begun again. UMP UMP UMP I'm still fat but not quite as fat as I was. Still claiming the doctorate but I have a better attitude about it (well I'm working on the attitude). Of course I'm older, but what's the alternative. And I know not to look for Black but friendly faces in high places. Amen!
Dana, I know what you mean. There was a vacancy in my department two years ago. The AP (now gone) said that no tenured teacher would be considered. A minority woman was hired, but she was fresh out of college with no experience. All of the mayoral candidates are talking about higher standards for teachers. Experienced teachers can't get a job now and some of the younger ones are let go in spite of apparent talent. It's as subjective as the free-lance profession I left. There's no security in serving a disadvantaged population. You are held responsible for their lack of achievement no matter how much you manage to advance your students. You are in my thoughts and prayers daily.
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