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Born in Santa Cruz, California, the same year A Nation at Risk came out. The schools I would attend for the next 15 years were woefully underfunded thanks to suburbanization and disinvestment in urban areas. A Nation at Risk would state that kids born during the introduction of that report would be finishing high school by the year 2000. I did not. But the report probably did not have an impact on my education because major changes didn’t come until 2002 with the No Child Left Behind Act and Race to the Top in 2009, which really kicked off higher standards for teachers and standardized testing, which I really didn’t experience at all

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I don’t really remember much. I remember going to various schools in old buildings with holes in the floors, busted doors, busted desks. I remember extremely angry teachers, especially angry towards kids of color. I believe I was diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder but then was led to believe that it went away towards the end of elementary school, so I stopped being taken out of regular classrooms towards the end of elementary school. I now know that my auditory processing disorder never went away. In fact, special education really didn’t start to become a thing until the 70’s when new special education laws started coming out. But special education really wasn’t taken seriously until the Individuals with Disabilities Act came out in 2004. So the whole field of special education was still in its infancy when I was in elementary school, and probably accounts for my misdiagnosis.

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I really struggled in middle school. I was not doing well academically and started to really act up, getting into fights and getting suspended regularly. My learning disability may have been a contributing factor. Around this time, my dad disappeared, and my mother and I went into extreme poverty. School choice became a real thing during this period of time, further having an impact on school resources in public schools. Aside from needing special education, I also could have benefited from social workers, counselors, and mental health services, which my schools did not have.

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I started school in a public high school, but I did not last long. I started drinking and doing drugs when I was 14. I would ditch school regularly to hang out on the streets and got kicked out of high school in my freshman year of high school. In chapter 6 of Education and Social Change, John Rury points out that these years were the “early years of testing” and that, “kids in poverty were not doing well in school at all” which I think could have been a contributing factor that led to me dropping out. I remember getting transferred to a high school and suddenly getting tested a lot and I was doing horribly. This chapter also highlighted the point that in the 90’s, schools were as segregated as ever, and about 75 percent of low-income kids were attending schools with low test scores, less qualified teachers, few advanced courses and were “dropout factories”, which can certainly describe the schools I went to.

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My mom tried getting me to stay in school by enrolling me in alternative schools. It was a nice effort on her part, but they were just daycare centers. I didn’t last long in them. In fact, I ran away from home at this point in my life and lived on the streets, in a van and in hotel rooms, selling drugs and living a crazy life. My friends were starting to get killed or locked up during this period.

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I was almost killed in a drug related shooting when I was 17. The hospital notifying my mother was the first she heard about me in a long time. When I was discharged to her, the first thing she did was drive me to Worcester, Massachusetts in her attempt to get me out of the drug game. She didn’t say a word that first day of driving. I just knew we must have been leaving Santa Cruz because all our stuff was in the back seat, including our cat.

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While recovering from both my shooting and drugs, I started to read voraciously. One book that had a profound impact on me was The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I felt like I could really relate to Malcolm X. Especially when he was in prison, recovering from drugs and becoming a veracious reader himself, I felt like I was right there with him going through the same thing. I knew that if he could turn himself around at that late point in his life and do great things for society, then so could I.

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I started working full time and obtained my GED, which seems typical since, according to Rury on page 214, low income youth have been historically overrepresented among GED takers. I also discovered the work of community organizing. Realizing that I could help people that were in a similar situation that I was in was extremely empowering.

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I knew that I needed a formal education. Thus began my long road of community college. I had to retake everything that I missed in high school in order to get actual college credit. Between that and having to work full time meant that it took many years before I could go to an actual college. During this time, I helped start an organization that works with homeless and at-risk youth. I learned a lot of about social work and how to start a non-profit. I would also work as a community organizer with various organizations.

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I would go on to study Urban Studies and Political Science at Worcester State University where I would learn about how poverty has affected my life. I developed an interest in urban policy during this period. I would get involved in political campaigns and manage races for School Committee, City Council, State Representative and Governor.

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I started a socially responsible juice bar and successfully ran for School Committee.

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While serving on the School Committee, I took advantage of a scholarship to get my master’s degree in public administration. After receiving death threats and constant harassment from the Police Department thanks to my fight against structural racism in Worcester, I decided not to seek re-election and moved my family to DC.

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I still want to serve, just not in public office. I would love to teach youth how to find their political voice and improve their communities because I know how empowering it was for me. I think I can do so as a social studies teacher. So here I am working on my second master’s degree. I love learning and this will not be my last degree.