FINDING LIGHT - PART II

Working the Baltimore gap

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"Robbie would stride through Cherry Hill with this tall, lanky, white-boy walk, confident as he could be," laughed Spruill, recalling last year.

"He loved to go to the 'chicken box' store and buy something as a reward for his kids.

"He showed no fear when it came to doing what he believed in.

"By the end of the year at Cherry Hill," Spruill recalled, "Robbie was making real progress and the kids respected him and responded to him.

"It wasn't just because of all the work he put into his lesson plans," he asserted, "it was because when he faced failure, he didn't decide it was the fault of the community.

"He decided that if the students were not successful, then the teacher needed to make a change. That's huge for a teacher ­­— to recognize that he needs to make changes. Robbie did that."

He's made adjustments at KASA this year as well. After the seventh-grade English teacher left in November, he suggested to math teacher Jimmy Wyner, a Teach for America colleague and Cornell track star, that they implement a management plan.

The plan uses a point system to reward good behaviors and penalize bad. They tabulated the scores in a binder.

"Depending on whether the English sub showed or not, we might have to see a class twice in one day," Wyner said. "The management system allows us to see how a student is behaving during the course of the day and week.

"When a problem arises," he explained, "we might sit down with a student who, for example, behaved well before lunch, but acted up after lunch."

"We can ask, 'Did something happen at lunch? Was there an altercation? Why were you so off this afternoon?'"

"Robbie's system," Wyner added, "has helped us show our students we care, and we are paying close attention to them as students and as people. We are looking for solutions for them."

With his Teach for America contract winding down, Earle refuses to give up on the achievement gap.

"The differences between suburban kids and inner-city kids are mostly superficial," he insisted. "It's just their circumstances."

Soon Earle will sign a new contract to teach in Baltimore City Schools again next year.

"After learning more about schools and teaching," he said, "I hope to move into educational policy.

"I have become devoted."