Teaching for America in Crips Territory: Relentless Pursuit

Hope and little glory at an L.A. high school

Comments (0) By Diana Wagman Wednesday, Apr 16 2008

That said, Relentless Pursuit bogs down in the endless TFA and LAUSD bureaucracies: too many names, dates and acronyms. The confusion and clunkiness are not entirely Foote’s fault; part of the problem is simply the world she is writing about, and it is Wendy Kopp’s too-cute penchant for labeling every position in TFA by initials. But Foote also lapses into litanies of facts and figures — important, though the details often seem endless and unnecessarily complicated. The one clear picture Foote gives us is that the system is incredibly complicated and absolutely dysfunctional.

This is a true story, not a movie. Gedeon’s math class doesn’t walk away with a trophy. Snyder’s students don’t test out of special ed. Many of Rifkin’s 10th-grade students go from fifth-grade reading comprehension to seventh-grade and, to Foote’s credit, the reader cheers. All four of the new TFA teachers she follows choose to continue at Locke for their second year. It seems remarkable, impossible and, again, a cause for celebration.

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At the end of the book, Foote admits that so much must still be done. Teach for America is nowhere near reaching its goal of closing the “achievement gap.” Specifically, the news about Locke High School is not good: The gangs have grown and the school — despite becoming a Green Dot charter — is still dangerous and chaotic. Can TFA really make a difference? Donna Foote comes to no conclusion; perhaps because there isn’t one.

Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach For America| By DONNA FOOTE | Alfred A. Knopf | 352 pages | $25 hardcover

Diana Wagman is the author of the novels Skin Deep, Spontaneous and Bump.