J. E. Pearce Middle School sits in a part of Austin my students called the Two-Three. Short for 78723, the Two-Three is a ZIP code that better captures the broken spirit of East Saint Louis than the progressive-minded ethos of Austin. In 2002, the year I started teaching at Pearce, many of the faculty had been hand-selected to revive the struggling school. Ron Bolek, our Ecuadorean-American principal, liked to compare our situation to the Peace Corps. If recent college graduates could donate two years to a starving village in Ghana, why not commit a few years to a school in a neglected corner of East Austin?
Seven years later the Texas Education Commissioner would call Pearce the worst-performing school in the state. I would rather not recall the aspects of my stint at Pearce that seem to affirm this assessment: the death threats, the police roaming the hallways, the schoolyard beatings. For all the turmoil, though, the school taught me some powerful lessons that, in their poignancy, not only warrant reflection but potentially hold educational lessons for a brighter future.
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I taught at the worst school in Texas
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