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No Rhyme, For No Good Reason Before I saw the middle school to which I had been assigned last October, I could hear it: The screams of 300 children filled the air for blocks around. As the four-story brick building in Northeast came into view, I could see hands and heads hanging out the windows. It was my first day as a resident poetry instructor for D.C. WritersCorps, a nonprofit group that teaches inner-city middle-schoolers to write and present poetry. The students attend one class a week and an after-school program once a week. After two months, 12 middle schools compete in a citywide "poetry slam." The winning school goes on to compete against schools from other cities. The program, which has been wildly successful since its inception in 1994, has had the usual funding problems, but the bureaucratic and logistical hurdles thrown up by President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act are new and formidable. Several weeks into my after-school program, the principal of my school, who has been the recipient of a national distinguished-principal award, said that my program would have to be terminated. The reason? It interfered with the federally funded after-school program that was instructing children on how to pass the standardized tests mandated by the No Child Left Behind legislation. All other after-school programs at my middle school already had been canceled to make way for the test preparations. The message was clear: In the new world of standardized tests and top-down directives, poetry has no place -- not even after school. For some of my students, who live in the grip of stinging poverty, poetry is a respite. For others, it is a way to reconnect to the school system, giving them hope about an effort that otherwise can seem futile. The students and I didn't take the cancellation lying down. We took it sitting down -- in the hallway outside the locked library -- and we continued to write poetry. The library is locked because the school can't afford a librarian. Probably nothing in those books would teach the kids how to pass the standardized tests anyway. The principal isn't really against the poetry program. Poetry cuts across lines of ideology -- think fascist Ezra Pound and leftist Walt Whitman. But the principal feared for her job and for her school's funding. She told me that if her school didn't continue to improve its test scores, she would be partially blamed for allowing a program to continue that competed with the after-school test-taking class. That was a risk she was unwilling to take. Many educators and policymakers supported the No Child Left Behind Act because it was supposed to increase school funding. But that promise turned out to be empty. The act was not funded as promised, and now educators are stuck with an unfunded mandate to constantly improve their test scores. This is education as envisioned by President Bush, but it's beginning to not sit well. From conservative states such as Utah to liberal ones such as Vermont, state lawmakers are resolving not to cooperate. The District should join these rebels. It should tell Mr. Bush that the only after-school programs it will be canceling will be his test-cramming sessions. If he wants, he can carry on his quest in the hallway outside the locked library. But someone should tell him to be sure to bring his own No. 2 pencil. -- Ryan Grim ryanwgrim@hotmail.com
