At the daily morning assembly last week, as I substituted for an elementary teacher in a district with a poverty rate over 80%, I listened as the principal went through various inspirational chants with her students. I was struck by how she ended the assembly: “All children have a right to learn,” she trumpeted. “All teachers have a right to teach!” The children parroted her, repeating these phrases.

Underneath her words, I heard the challenge facing our financially-disadvantaged and urban districts.

In the middle- to upper-middle-class suburb where I substituted today, I can’t imagine the Principal saying all children have the right to learn. In his world, that “right” would never need to be put into words. I can’t imagine him saying all teachers have the right to teach. Again, no alternative would occur to him. The idea that teachers would not have a right to teach would seem absurd. Teachers in his district go straight to work on academics in the morning without inspirational assemblies.

That Principal’s quote during her motivational assembly may be helpful in a financially- and academically-struggling district, epitomizing the disciplinary struggle that our least-advantaged districts face daily. Underneath those words, I hear a quiet plea to young, elementary students to behave, to please let their teachers teach and their classmates learn.

The site http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011002.pdf has a slew of government statistics on crime and disciplinary problems in schools that I might use to pick up this particular football and run with it.

I’ll pull out one set of facts. The category “widespread disorder in classrooms” can be found on page 114. When 0-25% of a public school’s students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, the percentage of schools reporting widespread disorder in classrooms is 1.4% with a note to interpret that data with caution. At 26 – 50% free and reduced-price lunch, the total rises to 2.5%, at 51 – 75%, 3.9% of schools report widespread disorder in classrooms. But when the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch hits 76 – 100% — like the elementary school where I listened to that Principal assert that teachers have a right to teach — widespread disorder in classrooms suddenly jumps up to 10%. One in ten classrooms has then been categorized as out of control — and I promise that these estimates will be underestimates. No sane school administration with administrators who want to retain their jobs will ever over-report these numbers. They will attempt to minimize or even sweep under that proverbial rug as many awkward numbers as possible.

Eduhonesty: I just felt like pulling some numbers out from under the rug. That Principal and her teachers in that low-income school are fighting formidable forces that almost never get pulled out into the light. I am not saying that poverty causes disorder and consequent disruptions in learning — but the correlation between poverty and behaviors that disrupt learning exists strongly. Last week, I heard an earnest young Principal playing cheerleader to the students in her school before their academic day began, attempting to preempt problems in classroom learning environments.

I offer this fact as one more reason why we should not bash teachers in low-income schools for their test scores.