{"id":4399,"date":"2016-09-16T09:06:38","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T16:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.rsed.org\/?p=4399"},"modified":"2018-08-31T22:14:50","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T22:14:50","slug":"why-im-an-education-reformer-by-board-member-alex-hernandez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipschools.org\/es\/ultimas-noticias\/blog\/why-im-an-education-reformer-by-board-member-alex-hernandez\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I’m an Education Reformer, by Board Member Alex Hernandez"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
Rocketship Board of Directors Member Alex Hernandez regularly writes for Eduwonk<\/a> at Bellwether Education Partners. Recently, Alex wrote about why he got into education<\/a> and what he sees for the future of our schools:<\/div>\n

I attended my neighborhood public high school in central California. The school was integrated through busing and, in the early 1990s, our 2,600 students were roughly one-third white, one-third black and Latino, and one-third Asian. We had a democratically-elected, local school board. I lived the progressive dream for public education.<\/p>\n

I knew something was very wrong at my school. We had about 1,000 freshman and 500 sophomores. Our graduating class had 330 students and maybe 50-75 students went straight to a four-year college. I\u2019d walk around the halls wondering which of my classmates wouldn\u2019t make it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to understand that a bad school can have great teachers. My twelfth grade English teacher and eleventh grade math teacher were among the finest in the area. I also loved one of my Spanish teachers who was kind and motherly. We played craps in the back of her classroom (a lot) while she laughed and pretended to cover her eyes. In staff meetings, she wasn\u2019t passive-aggressive like one of my English teachers who would read the newspaper, holding it high in protest so you couldn\u2019t even tell who was behind it.<\/p>\n

I eventually graduated fifth in my high school class and was fortunate enough to attend Claremont McKenna College, a selective liberal arts college. I worried a bit when I read more books in my first week of college than in my entire four years of high school.<\/p>\n

My junior year at Claremont, a friend pulled me aside and tried to gently inform me, \u201cUhhhh\u2026 You know you can\u2019t write, right?\u201d It\u2019s one thing to be told by a teacher that your work isn\u2019t up to snuff. My friend was just trying to be kind and I was completely humiliated.<\/p>\n

One would think a 4.5 high school GPA, inflated by honors classes where \u201cA\u201ds were worth five points, would mean I was college-ready. But I placed in the lowest-level math class offered at my college and the people who cared for me the most felt genuinely sorry for my literacy skills.<\/p>\n

California began ranking its public schools based on state test scores in 1999 and abruptly stopped in 2013. My high school spent most of that period ranked in the bottom 20% of ALL public high schools in the state. The rankings confirmed what we all long suspected and knew to be true in our hearts.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m an education reformer, because\u2026<\/p>\n

I know some schools are better than others.<\/p>\n

I know good teaching matters\u2026 and it is scarce.<\/p>\n

I know great teachers can work in bad organizations.<\/p>\n

I know schools only work for kids if the adults are all rowing in the same direction.<\/p>\n

I know schools don\u2019t just magically get better.<\/p>\n

I know families with means move to segregated public school districts, choose private schools and\/or take tests to gain admission to exclusive public schools \u2014 and no one thinks anything of it.<\/p>\n

I know I was one of the lucky ones.<\/p>\n

I know we can do better.<\/p>\n

\n

Alex Hernandez is Rocketship Board Member and a Partner at the Charter School Growth Fund (CSGF), a nonprofit that supports the growth of the nation\u2019s best public charter schools. He leads CSGF\u2019s Impact Team which helps charter networks build infrastructure, develop new innovations and share best practices. Alex also built CSGF\u2019s Next-Generation Schools practice where\u00a0he helps education entrepreneurs rethink school. Alex is a former Area Superintendent at Aspire Public Schools where he managed schools in the California Central Valley region. He taught high school math in South Los Angeles and later served as a Broad Fellow at Portland Public Schools. Before that, Alex worked for several years with JP Morgan and Disney\u2019s venture capital arm, Steamboat Ventures. He is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College and\u00a0has an MBA and Masters of Education from Stanford University.<\/em><\/p>\n

Why did you get involved in education reform? Share your story \u279f @RocketshipEd<\/p>\n

 <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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The school was integrated through busing and, in the early 1990s,…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":12109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"table_tags":[],"tips_for_teachers":[],"class_list":["post-4399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-reform"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy I'm an Education Reformer, by Board Member Alex Hernandez<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rocketshipschools.org\/es\/ultimas-noticias\/blog\/why-im-an-education-reformer-by-board-member-alex-hernandez\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_MX\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why I'm an Education Reformer, by Board Member Alex Hernandez\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rocketship Board of Directors Member Alex Hernandez regularly writes for Eduwonk at Bellwether Education Partners. 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