Kesedria Carter stands in the vestibule, her lanky body hunched against the bricks to keep the whipping wind off her face, her hands jammed into her pockets. She pokes her head around the corner, pigtails flapping against her face, and searches down Montrose Avenue for the No. 78 bus.
It’s 7:25 in the morning and the 10-year-old is on her way to school with her mom, two hours before the morning bell.
Kesedria’s neighborhood school is just two blocks away from her Lincoln Square apartment, but the 5th grader is setting out on a 20-minute journey to a better school in a different neighborhood.
She is one of more than 700 Chicago students using the No Child Left Behind law this year to escape her struggling school and transfer into a better one. Kesedria left a school where fewer than half the students passed state exams and 20 percent of teachers are not properly trained. She enrolled in a school where two-thirds of children met the mark and 95 percent of teachers are fully certified.
Kesedria’s story shows that the landmark federal education reform can provide new hope for some students.
But it also demonstrates that making these opportunities work requires a daily, single-minded commitment from all those involved–in this case, from Kesedria, from her mother and from the teachers and administrators at her new school, Stockton Elementary, all of whom go out of their way to pursue success.
Kesedria’s mom, Karen Brown, wakes up at 5:30 and drops off her daughter at school by about 7:50. She gets back on the bus and travels about 45 minutes through six neighborhoods to her job as a dental assistant. Brown is supposed to be at work by 7, but her boss allowed the tardiness to let Brown take her daughter to Stockton.
For Kesedria, the early arrival at her Uptown school means a lot of waiting. Waiting to get inside the school, which opens at 8 a.m. Waiting to get into the cafeteria, which opens at 8:25. Waiting until the morning bell finally rings at 9:20.
But mother and daughter say these inconveniences are worth it.
“When I grow up, I want to have a good job. I need a good education to get one,” says Kesedria, a precocious statement from a child who still watches SpongeBob SquarePants and plays with her Bratz dolls. “I want to be a pediatrician. I need to go to a good school now or I might not be able to get into a good college.”
Earlier this year, the Tribune profiled Rayola Victoria Carwell, a 3rd grader who used the federal No Child Left Behind law to transfer from her failing South Side school to Stockton on the North Side.
Rayola’s story was one of a dream derailed. The 13-mile commute turned into a nightmare of two-hour bus and train rides. Compounding the problem, Rayola’s mother had trouble getting her children up in the morning and often allowed them to stay home from school.
By the middle of the school year, Rayola’s mom pulled her three children out of Stockton and transferred them to a struggling South Side school closer to their Englewood home.
Kesedria’s story is that of a dream on the right track.
She transferred last year too. But despite the early mornings–she has to get up at 6 a.m.–as well as the commute, the tedious waiting and the academic struggles early on, Kesedria is a star in her classroom.
Her latest progress report shows all A’s and B’s, except for a C in math, the one subject that continues to frustrate her.
The classroom walls are dotted with evidence of her success: The math assignment on three-digit addition with a great big “94/A” and “Super” scribbled across it. The spelling quiz with the red smiley face and the “A” noted down the margin. The “How to Make `Dish of Dirt'” essay with its precise penmanship and “Perfect” written on top.
On the classroom door hangs a photograph of Kesedria–her gap-toothed smile anchored by crescent-shaped dimples, her inquisitive eyes framed with wire-rimmed glasses. Above it, scrawled in big black letters: “Student of the Month.”
Kesedria and Stockton are an ideal fit.
The school sets high standards for its students and Kesedria sets high standards for herself.
Though she adorns her hair with sparkly pink and purple clips and still sleeps with dolls, Kesedria seems much older than 10. When her 7-year-old brother, Walter, turns on “Tom and Jerry,” Kesedria pulls out a book to read or gathers her sketchbook and meticulously draws the show’s characters.
When her classmates huddle together to gossip about the cutest boys in the class, Kesedria focuses on her class work.
And when her mom is running late, Kesedria dresses herself quickly and heads into the kitchen to make the scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes.
She is studious and single-minded. In class, she’s the first to raise her hand and tries to finish her work first. She’s a bit of an eager beaver.
“She is one of my brightest students,” says teacher Janet Avelar. “I’ve never seen a student work as hard as she does. She always does what I tell her to do. She’s a joy to have in the classroom.”
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Verdict still out on law
There is no way to know for certain if Kesedria’s or Rayola’s experience with No Child Left Behind is more typical.
Neither the federal government nor Chicago Public Schools has done an analysis of the academic performance of transferring students in the program’s first two years. And Chicago officials declined to provide their test results so the Tribune could do its own analysis, citing student privacy concerns.
It could be years before a definitive pattern emerges from the experiences of No Child Left Behind.
What is known is that 37 percent of Chicago students who transferred to a better school last year have already left that school, according to district officials. Some went back to their old school. Many left the Chicago school district altogether. Most, like the Carwells, simply transferred to another school in the district.
Of the 14 students who transferred to Stockton last year, 10 finished out the last school year. Three have since transferred. Today, seven remain and school officials say most are doing well.
Before she enrolled at Stockton, Kesedria attended Waters Elementary in Lincoln Square, a school where 89 percent of students come from low-income homes and 37 percent speak English as a second language.
Brown says the school was “fine.” But “fine” wasn’t good enough for her daughter.
“The teachers weren’t motivating enough for her,” Brown says. “The work was too easy. She was bored. She didn’t have very much homework and she just wasn’t challenged.”
Brown looked into sending Kesedria to a Catholic school, but quickly realized that as a single working parent with two children, she could ill afford the tuition.
She was overjoyed when she found out that Kesedria, as a low-income child in a failing school, was eligible to transfer to a better campus. About 270,000 Chicago students were eligible to transfer last year, but the district found spaces for only 1,035 of them. In the end, only 536 actually moved.
Brown says Kesedria was not prepared for the academic challenges she faced when she first enrolled at Stockton as a 4th grader last year.
Math was especially tough for Kesedria. She had trouble with multiplication tables and with rounding three-digit numbers. The teacher moved faster than she was used to. Her homework assignments tripled.
So the determined girl did what she always does. She worked and willed her way into a report card filled with A’s and B’s.
She got into the classroom early in the morning to get extra help from the teacher. She stayed up past her 8 p.m. bedtime to do extra credit. Sometimes, she skipped her favorite TV shows, “That’s So Raven” and “Sister, Sister,” so she could get in some extra studying.
“I knew I could do better,” she recalls.
Check and double-check
Today, even though she is one of the top students in her class, Kesedria still holds tight to the old study habits.
On a recent morning, Kesedria sits in the Stockton auditorium with dozens of other students waiting for the morning bell to ring. The cavernous room is alive with children chattering and giggling, so loud that one teacher walks around with her hands over her ears. Several girls sitting behind Kesedria continually kick the back of her seat as they playfully wrestle over a hairbrush.
Kesedria is oblivious to the ruckus, seemingly surrounded by a bubble of silence. She reaches into her pink and black Bratz backpack and pulls out her homework to check, for the umpteenth time, whether she finished it.
“Math, 10-13 (plan, solve, explain),” it reads under the day’s date. A black check mark beside it.
“English/reading, finish workbook Pg. 115-117.” Check.
“Social Studies, read chapter 3 & 4, questions and summary.” Check.
As usual, it’s all done.
Kesedria slides the notebook into her backpack and pulls out a “Word Finder” puzzle book. She opens to the middle of the book and hunts through the jumble of letters in search of the target words. She seems completely unaware of the rising decibel level and the kicking that rocks the back of her chair.
Kesedria’s focus fits well at Stockton, a school where achievement is not a fanciful notion, but rather an unquestioned presumption.
The school has the kind of demographics usually linked to dismal test scores and low morale: 93 percent of students live in poverty. More than 33 percent speak English as a second language. One-third of the student body will either enroll late or transfer out early.
But Stockton works for reasons not apparent on paper.
In Kesedria’s 5th-grade classroom, teacher Avelar has little time for children who act up.
When a student consistently misbehaves–which doesn’t happen that often–Avelar simply writes the child’s name on the chalkboard under a drawing of a frowning face. That one move signals to the student and the rest of the classroom that Avelar expects better of them.
The names of students having a very good day appear under a smiley face. Kesedria, whose name often is under the smile, thrives in this atmosphere.
“I’m happy I get to learn something new,” she says. “I’m happy I have to work hard to keep up.”
The school is run by administrators who demand excellence from teachers and students. Curriculums are constantly re-examined. Most discretionary money goes toward keeping classes small. And the school hosts a Boys and Girls Club that keeps children in the Stockton community, with all its expectations, after classes end.
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The club has been a lifesaver for Kesedria and her mom. Every day after school, Kesedria heads to the club for a snack, homework hour, then a bevy of games. This gives Brown enough time to catch the bus after work and retrace the 45-minute commute to Stockton to pick up her daughter.
Brown said she hopes her daughter can finish her elementary years at Stockton but fears she may have to move out of her neighborhood soon. Her family of three is outgrowing their one-bedroom apartment, and she cannot find a two-bedroom she can afford in the fast-gentrifying area. The move might take her farther away from Stockton.
“I’m hoping I can find something nearby,” she says. “Kesedria would be really sad if she had to leave Stockton.”