To Be or Not To Be a Hypocrite

My school is losing a good number of teachers this year, the most common reason being,

"I'm moving to Wake County."

If you're unfamiliar with North Carolina geography, that's the county next to Durham, which includes Raleigh and its high-class neighbor Cary (the tenth safest city in America, where Martha Stewart is piloting her new neighborhood of branded homes). Although Raleigh is the bigger city, Durham has a reputation as being poorer, dirtier, and more dangerous (i.e., the Dirty D). True there are some parts of Durham I wouldn't go to at night, but that can be said for any city. Still, the overwhelming perception of Durham is that of a racially divided, post-industrial town with a bunch of young, upper-middle class transplants who come only temporarily to study at Duke.

Behind this seemingly innocuous statement --"I'm moving to Wake County"-- lies the implicit reason for leaving; most of these teachers have school-age (or soon-to-be-school-age) children.
The public schools in Durham are certainly not without their problems --re-segregation, gang violence, and teacher retention among them. Still, isn't leaving the school district you teach in for one with "better schools" hypocritical?

I understand that parents have to make important decisions about their child's education, and that often these choices supersede their own idealistic values. The teachers who I am addressing are overwhelmingly young, white, and female; like all teachers, they believe that with high-quality instruction any group of students can succeed --regardless of socio-economic status and home environment. These women have chosen to work in Durham because they believe that here they can make a difference. They typically throw all their energy into teaching and end up being some of the most successful teachers at my school.

Then their children come of age, and they are faced with a choice. Leave Durham and the school system into which you have put your faith and hard work, or stay and force your child to face the consequences. This is certainly an agonizing dilemma, but choosing the latter amounts to a vote of no-confidence in Durham Public Schools and its teachers. How could someone who believes so strongly that Durham's underprivileged youth deserve a quality education imply that that same education is not good enough for their own child? Even if there is a gap between the education children in Durham are actually getting and the one they should be getting, the situation will only improve when people like these teachers --people who believe it is possible to provide a free and fair education to all children--are willing to stand behind their beliefs.

Parents are ultimately responsible for their child's education. In the end, it's not going to matter what school your child goes to or who is his/her teacher, it's whether you as a parent can instill motivation and a love of learning in your own child. Teachers, more than anyone else, should be able to realize this, and make a decision that better reflects their ideals.