[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 49 (Thursday, April 21, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H2455-H2456]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
JASON KAMRAS, NATIONAL TEACHER OF THE YEAR
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the House for a joyful moment.
On the front page of the Washington Post today is a very large
picture of children of the District of Columbia and one of their
teachers, who was entertained yesterday by President Bush at the White
House to celebrate the fact that he has been named Teacher of the Year,
the oldest and most prestigious award for teachers in our country.
This is a young man who teaches at Sousa Junior High School in
Washington, D.C. Jason Kamras is his name. He is a math teacher who
graduated from Princeton University. What does he think to do with his
life? Come to the District of Columbia to teach disadvantaged children
in our elementary and middle schools.
He began teaching in 1996. He took 2 years out because he thought he
ought to go and get an education degree, and he went and got a master's
degree in education, but came right back to the District of Columbia to
teach math at Sousa.
Typical of the way this young man approached his job is the student
he first met when he was in middle school at Sousa. His name was
Wendell Jefferson. He said, Wendell, you keep trying; you will do well.
Wendell Jefferson went on to high school. When he got to high school,
no longer under the care of Mr. Kamras, Mr. Kamras tutored him in math.
Wendell Jefferson is now studying electrical engineering at Morehouse
College.
This story is perhaps emblematic of the way this young man approaches
teaching. He lobbied his principal for double the time for students in
math, with two teachers for each student. He redesigned the curriculum
using technologies so as to adjust the curriculum to all learning
styles. He took to heart this notion that every child can learn, those
words which have become such a cliche, a cliche because we all know
them to be true, but we do not know always how to unlock what makes
them true.
In his first year, using his new curriculum, these children went from
80 percent below basic to 40 percent below basic. Something happened to
almost 40 percent of them when they got a teacher who homed in on their
individual needs. Now, we are talking about a school where all but 40
of about 380 students qualify for the reduced price lunch. It tells us
something of the poverty level of the students.
Actually, the District of Columbia public schools look a lot like
every big public school, except the Members of Congress see this one up
close. We are very pleased to have a new superintendent, Mr. Janey, who
is in the process of restructuring our public schools, but of course,
the most basic restructuring of schools has to do, first, with the
children in those schools, how the schools are restructured so that
they are child-oriented and how are they restructured so as to
understand the most important adult in each child's life during the
school day is the teacher. Somehow or the other this young man, fresh
out of college, understood that.
He works from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. according to his principal. My
mother was a schoolteacher, so I want to say that those long hours are
fairly typical of how teachers operate. They do not do it at school.
They are working that hard because of the hours they put in at home in
preparing to teach.
But for Mr. Kamras, teaching in a big city school system was much
more difficult than it was for my mother when she taught when I was a
child because of the concentration of poverty in big cities today. This
city was a much larger city, 200,000 people more than it has today, and
it was far more mixed economically. Then, of course, people began to
move to larger quarters in the suburbs leaving concentrations of
poverty here. We have lots of middle-class people in the District, I am
pleased to say, but we have large concentrations of poverty, and this
is reflected in the scores.
The fact that Jason Kamras was able not only to reach the children,
but to reach the measurement, which I think is the right measurement;
there is no way to get around the fact that test scores are the only
way to know for sure that children are progressing. I wish there were a
better way. I wish there were a more objective way, but that is it.
{time} 1730
This teacher has somehow made these test scores go up.
Mr. Speaker, I do want to quote something that he said, because it
tells something of his world view. He said, ``My intense desire to see
my school excel comes not only from an unwavering belief that all
students deserve an excellent education, but also the unique role Sousa
played in the civil rights movement.''
This young man's world view gives him a sense that justice in the
classroom must be done because he believes in justice in our country
for African Americans, and he has brought it to bear right here in the
public schools of the District of Columbia.
I know you would want to, Mr. Speaker, congratulate him; I know this
House would want to congratulate him. We take great pride in his
achievement today, and we thank the President of the United States for
honoring him.
[[Page H2456]]
Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the article I referred to
earlier in my remarks:
[From the Washington Post]
A D.C. Teacher's Day in the Rose Garden
Math Innovator Is First From City to Be Declared Best in Nation
(By Manny Fernandez and V. Dion Haynes)
The sixth-graders were hunched over their desks behind the
metal-screened windows of the middle school--still digesting
the difference between similes and metaphors--as the
limousine carrying their school's best teacher pulled up to
the northwest gate of the White House yesterday.
Welcomed at the gate, Jason Kamras made his way up the
driveway flanked with red tulips and walked into a limelight
that falls sparingly on the weathered urban school where he
has taught math for close to a decade.
``My children simply want the opportunity to pursue their
dreams,'' Kamras said as he stood in the Rose Garden beside
the president and first lady.
The ceremony recognized Kamras, 31, as the National Teacher
of the Year. He is the first winner from a D.C. public school
in the contest's 53-year history.
``He's usually at work at 7 a.m., and he rarely leaves
before 7 p.m.,'' President Bush said as bright sunshine
streamed down on those who gathered for the event. Kamras
receives great joy, Bush told them, ``when a student
proclaims, `Mr. Kamras, I get it.' ''
Kamras smiled.
At that moment--six miles and a world away--students in
Room 120 at John Philip Sousa Middle School had their rulers
out, drawing rectangles, some of them quiet and studious,
others loud and distracted.
Sousa sits at the edge of a park east of the Anacostia
River, on the poorer side of Washington's dividing line
between the haves and the have-nots.
With its tall chimney, the 50-year-old, red-brick building
looks more like a factory than a school.
The white flag pole has no flag, and a sign near the
entrance declares that firearms are banned within 500 feet.
Two women were shot to death down the street several years
ago, and the metal detector that students walk through each
morning has turned up several knives.
All but 40 of the roughly 380 students qualify for a free
or reduced-price lunch, a commonly used indicator of poverty.
A year ago, 46 percent of the students scored ``below basic''
on reading tests, and 73 percent scored below basic in math.
Kamras said he doesn't dwell on the negative. His focus is
on the faces in his classroom.
``They inspire me every day with their intelligence,
creativity and humor,'' he said in the Rose Garden yesterday.
Teachers ``can and do make a dramatic difference in their
lives every day.''
He was fresh out of Princeton almost nine years ago, and
the middle school was showing signs of age, when he first
laid eyes on it.
Sousa's principal, William Lipscomb, had fetched him from
the Minnesota Avenue Metro station in Northeast, and the two
men immediately found common ground.
``We both are from New York and we instantly bonded on
that,'' Kamras said.
Two sixth-grade teachers, Carol Taylor and Elaine Stewart,
supplied Kamras with construction paper for his classroom and
a bit of an introduction to the school.
``Some of the things they raised were the lack of
resources. They talked about the socioeconomic challenges
that some students at Sousa face,'' Kamras recalled in an
interview this week. ``Some students here have encountered
violence personally.''
But from the start, he said, he was determined to ``never
use the negative factors as predictors of ability or
potential.''
During his first year of teaching, Kamras said, he sought
to get to ``know the students as individuals, taking the time
to learn who they are, what they care about, what their needs
are as learners.''
Kamras made bridging the inequities in staffing and other
resources between urban and suburban schools a priority. He
got creative. He brought a cookie with colorful frosting to
class to illustrate circumference, diameter and radius. He
took his students to outings at the Lincoln and Jefferson
memorials and made time after school to encourage their
hobbies. He encouraged his students to take photographs of
community life, and their prints were put on display in city
offices at Judiciary Square and other places in the city.
And he played chess with student Wendall Jefferson once a
week. ``He would routinely defeat me, and I was trying my
hardest,'' Kamras said.
During those games he learned about the student and his
family, and he sought to inspire him to ``focus in class and
tap into the fullness of his potential.''
``I think I was learning as a first year teacher how to
engage students and bring their natural love . . . for their
hobbies into the classroom,'' Kamras recalled. ``I wanted to
use that as a catalyst.''
Jefferson graduated from Sousa in 1999 as valedictorian,
and Kamras regularly tutored him in math and science when he
went on to high school. Now Jefferson is studying electrical
engineering at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He is the first
in his family to go to college.
``He said, `Wendall, you have great potential,' '' recalled
Jefferson, 20, who attended the Rose Garden ceremony
yesterday. ``I said, `I'm destined to do great things.' He
said, `Always keep that dream.' ''
Kamras began ``early bird'' advanced math classes before
the regular school day began, working to prepare students for
the standardized test known as the Stanford 9.
He also came up with an idea that doubled the amount of
math instruction by providing two teachers--teaching separate
classes--for every student. The program was started for
seventh-graders and then expanded to other grades.
``Our Stanford 9 scores went from approximately 80 percent
below basic to 40 percent below basic in one year,'' he said.
Though the program continues in other grades, it was
discontinued for seventh-graders because there weren't enough
qualified teachers.
Kamras said he steadfastly refused to let ``negative
factors shape my perspective.''
At the White House, Kamras, who with his boyish looks could
have been mistaken for a student all dressed up, heard Bush
say, ``Your students are fortunate to have you in their
lives.''
He shook hands with Bush and--holding his teaching award, a
glass apple on a plaque--posed for photos with the president
and first lady Laura Bush.
Next year, he plans to travel the country to promote
innovative teaching techniques. He's taking today and
tomorrow off. But he plans on being back in the classroom, as
usual, first thing Monday morning.
____________________