St. Paul's Recommendation

Recently I wrote a letter of recommendation for a student in my freshman Honors English class. We'll call him Joe Jones. It went to St. Paul's School and several other elite prep schools. I didn't send the following letter, but part of me wanted to.

Dear Admissions Committee:

I'm writing on behalf of Joe Jones. He's a terrific kid -- a real leader in my class. He's smart, responsible, funny, energetic, creative, thoughtful, and popular with the other kids because he doesn't advertise his virtues.  He's also been through a family tragedy, which has made him mature beyond his years. He'd be an outstanding member of your school community.

I hope you understand, however, if I have mixed feelings about writing this letter. I've only been teaching honors freshman English for two years, but this is the fifth kid I've recommended to you or other private schools like yours. They were all the kind of students a teacher dreams of having in a class.  They force you to be a better teacher. They challenge you to be worthy of them, and the light in their eyes when you succeed makes you feel proud of yourself and your  profession.

But you already know that. Your whole student body is made up of kids like these. And that's great, because not only do they benefit from your lovely and historic campus, your magnificent library, theater, and laboratories, and your distinguished faculty, they benefit from each other. Being around other remarkable students is an education in itself.

Still, I can't help feeling sad about losing them. I don't blame them or their parents for wanting the best -- that's the American dream, isn't it? But there's another American dream, too -- that we are all equal before God and the ballot box, that fencing our best and brightest youngsters off from the rest of society is, in the long run, harmful to our democracy.

Public schools were invented with that second dream in mind. Public schools are required to accept every student, regardless of his or her talents, intelligence, family background. We may be the only nation on earth -- the only nation in history -- to believe that every child deserves an education, and to attempt to give it to them.  It's a magnificent ambition, and it's the source of most of our problems in public schools. We have to try to educate every student who walks in the door, no matter how deprived, damaged, disruptive or dangerous he or she may be.

And we do it. We do it willingly, idealists or fools that we are. But teachers and administrators can't do it all by ourselves.  We need kids like Joe, the kids other kids look up to and want to be like, to make this preposterous project feasible. We need them desperately.  We need them more than you do.

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