At the age of 25 and after three years in a classroom, Meghan Zefran thought she was heading into the prime of her teaching career. But now she’s out of a job. “I’m in limbo,” she says. “The board says there are jobs, but I can’t find them.”
Then she met the boy’s mother. “She came to school,” she says. “She had him by the collar, and she was saying, ‘You’d better fucking apologize.’ Then she tells me, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll tear his ass up at home.’ I’m thinking, ‘Oh great, that will teach him not to hit anymore.’”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
She recalls one student who’d been held back twice. “I don’t think it’s such a mystery as to why she was having troubles,” she says. “I think she’s dyslexic. She had so much crap in her life. Her mother’s boyfriend was killed–stabbed with a knife. Her older brother was shot and killed. Her mother was fighting with an older sister who chased her with a knife. But of course I was supposed to get her to pass the test, which, as you know, is not supposed to be a pass-fail test and is culturally biased. Hello! This is lunacy.”
Despite the frustrations, Zefran was still eager to go on teaching. “I’m not a burnout case,” she says. “I loved the challenge. I got along great with my fellow teachers and my principal. They were great. We worked well together. And I love the kids. You can’t work with them and not love them. You see their potential. You’re helping form them. You’re making a difference.”
Zefran got the word when she returned from vacation in early August. “I met with the principal,” she says, “and she told me, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have the money to keep you after all.’”
So far Zefran hasn’t qualified for any of them. “I’m going through the phone book calling every school from A to Z,” she says. “I’m at C, and I haven’t found one job yet. I’ve called about 100 schools, and I ask about vacancies. They say no. Or if they have vacancies they tell me they can’t hire me because I’m white and they need to comply with desegregation requirements.”
She goes on, “The whole point of No Child Left Behind is to help kids from low-income families. But how can you help them if you take away teachers and put more kids into one classroom? These are exactly the kind of kids who would benefit the most from smaller class sizes. You’re not helping them–you’re hurting them.”
