Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone, and thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This week's episode is asking the question, am I the problem? It's prompted by an opinion piece I read in the Wall Street Journal by Jason Reilly called The Answer to the Academic Achievement Gap Is Obvious. Here's his point. America is dealing with an academic achievement gap, a gap between, minority students and m, the majority white population. A, gap between low income students and higher income students. It is harder in America to do well in education if you are a low income minority than it is for anyone else. Obviously that's a problem that we should care about. What Riley's point though is we actually already know the solution. Now, to this point, he uses New York City as an example. New York City spent $40 billion on public schools in 2024 alone. 40 billion with a B dollars. That's about $36,000 per student, more than double the national average. Yet nearly half of its schools are failing in both standardized math and reading. in New York City, only 34% of students attend elementary schools, where most fail in Math and Reading, 49% attend failing middle schools and 62% of attend high schools where they cannot pass the necessary exams in math or reading. In other words, New York City schools, despite a, $40 billion budget, are failing dramatically. And their failures are happening mostly among black, Hispanic and low income students. But what's interesting is, public charter schools, schools in New York City that are available to anyone using some government dollars, but not public schools operating outside of the school system, have wildly different results, especially among black, Hispanic and low income students. For example, Success Academy, a charter school in New York City, finished number one in the state in math and second in reading. They have achieved a 100% college acceptance rate. So just on one side, $40 billion and total failure on the other side, much less spending and total success. Riley says, listen, we know the answer. That's not the problem. So what is the problem? Well, the answer is the public education lobby, teachers unions, educators themselves, who do not want the public school system to lose its funding, who push against charter schools as a threat to, to their own job security, despite the fact that these schools are lapping them in actually educating students. Now, what is my point? Well, here's my point. I don't live in New York City, but this is a great metaphor for the human condition because what Riley is arguing is that educators themselves are the Problem, which is so interesting to me, because people who go into education, they don't go into education because they want students to fail. They go in because they want students to succeed. They want students to read and write and go on to exciting and interesting lives and careers. The problem is educators don't seem capable of saying we are the problem. Like, we need to take a hard look at what we're doing. We may not be the right answer. And that is a problem that, that is not just true in New York City and not just true in education. That's a problem that is in my own heart. It is so hard to admit when I'm the problem. It's so much easier to say, if I only had more money, if I only had more help, if I only could get what I needed. It's much harder to say, no, no, no, no, external causes are not the problem. I am the problem. You know, Jesus knew that. And that's why in Matthew 7 he says this. He says, why do you see the speck in your brother's eye but fail to notice the beam in your own eyes? Just picking up on the human condition. It is so easy to notice the weaknesses of everyone else and so hard to actually be honest about my own. But here's the problem. New York City public education will never get better until educators are able to be humble enough to say, we're getting $40 billion and we're not getting the job done. That's a scary thing to say, but it's also the first step towards actually revolutionizing education. You and I will never experience dramatic life change until we begin with this. I am the problem. I can't blame anyone else. I can't point fingers at anyone else. I'm the problem. I've got to acknowledge that and get out of the way and let someone else speak into this. Namely, I've got to get out of the way and, and let Jesus lead. It's easy for me to shake my fist at, New York City public education. That's low hanging fruit. It's an easy target. It's much harder for me to acknowledge the many things in my life that will only get better when I own them. What is going on in your life that you've been blaming other people for? Do you actually want change? Because I got to tell you, if the beginning of this episode, you were shaking your head at the New York City public schools. That's a spec. Where is the log in your own life that's requiring you to say, I need to admit I am, the problem. Hey, thanks for checking out Wake Up, Look Up for more content. Be sure to visit the Christ Community Chapel app or website cccchapel.com.

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