By Larry Grau, DFER Indiana State Director
Sometimes in this ed reform space (as our fearless leader, Joe Williams has called it), we tend to get wrapped up in the rhetoric, debate, and attempts to score points in favor of our particular viewpoints. You have to admit we all have been guilty of it from time-to-time, reformers and those arguing against reform alike. However, there is nothing that should more quickly snap you out of the tunnel vision than one of those “real life” stories of someone caught in the daily struggles of navigating their way through our education systems. Those innocent victims of the system are typically young people who—more often than not—have the odds stacked against them due to factors such as race and poverty, along with being limited to attending nothing but poor performing schools. Fred Hopkins’ story provides us with the latest example of this problem in Indianapolis.
Fred, a young man of many talents, is a tall, commanding figure who was on his way to becoming an excellent football player at Arsenal Tech in Indianapolis. That was until he could no longer find cleats to fit his size 20 feet, a size that isn’t sold in stores. And, his parents couldn’t afford to pay the money it would cost to have them custom made. At that point, thanks to a newspaper column, the community came to Fred’s aid, donating enough money to acquire the specially fitted custom cleats he needed to be able to keep playing football. In total, the community responded by sending over $20,000 to Fred’s school, more than enough for a couple of pairs of cleats and then some. But, that was when the storyline turned from being an act of community generosity to one of administrative bureaucratic mumble-jumble, ending in school and district officials spending the lump sum (about $14,000) of the money donated to help a deserving young man and his family. With $6,300 remaining in the account—after about $800 was spent on equipment for Fred—the family has hired lawyers to get back what is left in the account.
I am not going to lay out Fred’s entire story in this post, primarily since Indianapolis Star columnist, Matt Tully, who wrote the initial column on Fred, did such a good job chronicling the narrative. The gist is that Fred’s family is struggling. As reported by Tully, although Fred was accepted to college in Arizona, the family may not be able to cover the cost of his flight to get there. It’s clear that the money that was originally donated to Fred—if returned—would help to provide continued support for his education.
Fred’s journey at Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) likely sounds all too familiar to anyone who has spent more than five minutes examining how the nation’s schools are doing, especially in our larger metropolitan areas; and while it’s yet to be determined if Fred will have the remaining funds returned to him, he does appear to be on a much better path than most students encountering the unnecessary adversities public school systems can create for the kids they are supposed to serve. Nonetheless, what Fred and his family are enduring draws attention to many of the issues that drive the vast majority of ed reformers I know to be so passionate about our work. In addition, Fred’s story shows how complicated these issues can become, and how, even in some of the most dysfunctional situations, there are individuals who continue to do everything possible to help young people succeed.
As Matt so eloquently described it, by all accounts, Fred Hopkins is a young man who in spite of facing many hurdles on his path to a bright future posed by growing up in a low-income area and attending a school with a poor performance history, was using his talents and abilities to get ahead. He was actually progressing towards graduation, and thankfully received his diploma a few weeks ago. Yet, as DFER-IN supported IPS School Board member, Caitlin Hannon so beautifully depicted in a letter to the editor of the Star, “While we should be celebrating Fred’s indisputable success, we are instead trying to clean up our mess.”
The specific mess in this case was the result of a variety of school and district administrators, along with other staff, failing to recognize and respect the contributions that rolled in were to help Fred and his family. The bigger mess though is the pervasive bureaucratic nature of a school system in which some employees and leaders put themselves and other adults in the system ahead of the needs of students and worry more about control than doing what is right or fair.
The ugly fact is, there are too many Freds (and many more suffering worse fates) in our education systems across the nation. While we should be extremely grateful for the caring people who repeatedly went above and beyond to help Fred along the way, we also have to recognize some students never get support like that.
What would everyone who believes we need to fix poverty first before the education systems can improve, tell Fred? Sorry, we couldn’t help…because you are poor these things happen? Ironically, it does seem Fred is moving forward, diploma in hand, while Caitlin and her colleagues on the IPS School Board wrestle with the clean-up of yet another mess caused by a bloated, broken school system. Fred and his family deserved better, and until we all resolve ourselves to the reality—our education systems must be significantly improved—there will tragically be more Freds every year. That is just not acceptable.
Larry joined the DFER team at the end of 2010. He has over twenty years of experience in research, policy development and analysis, and evaluation, primarily in the areas of education and youth development. He was formerly the chief education policy advisor to Governor Frank O’Bannon, and served as the Education Finance Analyst for the Indiana House Ways and Means Committee prior to that. Read more about Larry here.