Eye on the ball

Look, there’s a lot happening in Washington. If you want smart takes on Trump/DOGE moves related to education, you can read Andy or Chad or other smart folks.

My work has always been driven by what’s actually happening in schools every day, so that’s where my focus remains. So I want to tell you about Marissa.

Marissa is 16 years old and lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. One of her goals is to graduate high school in three years—she asked her school in Hamilton County School District if they would support her in this goal, and they said yes. She’ll graduate in June 2025 and head off to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in the fall.

Marissa wants to be a teacher. She applied for Hamilton County’s Impact Fellowship, a program that hires 11th and 12th grade students to work as high-impact tutors in local elementary schools. Every day she leaves her high school and walks down the hill to the same elementary school she attended, where she spends 30 minutes tutoring two fourth-grade students in reading. Marissa is paid for this work and earns school credit.

Marissa describes her parents as “laid-back.” She says they don’t care if she goes to college, or what career she pursues. She knows she will pay her own way through college, where she will study elementary education. Marissa hopes that her experience tutoring will give her a leg up, both in acquiring paid work in college and in completing her degree so she can become a teacher herself.

This is the ball I’m keeping my eye on. Districts supporting students in getting what they want out of high school. Districts supporting student achievement while providing paid work experience to yet other students. Young adults like Marissa who want to become teachers. Young adults who want to go to a four-year college because it’s right for them, with or without parental support.

Marissa is doing all of this right now. She doesn’t know or care about what’s happening in Washington, whether people are losing their jobs or grants are being cut. Some may argue that this administration’s actions will lead to fewer Marissas, but I think we just don’t know what the downstream effects of cutting research budgets and a handful of federal staff (the only two actions that have actually occurred for education) are. I certainly can’t say whether Hamilton County School District’s ability to support Marissa in early graduation or to hire a small group of high school students (about 25 across the districts) as paid tutors would be impacted by many of the suggested federal moves.

Find yourself a Marissa. She’ll give you hope, and remind you of what’s real.