Review of What We Stand to Lose: Black Teachers, the Culture They Created, and the Closure of a New Orleans High School, by K. L. Buras

I am first and foremost a teacher. I have been formally teaching in some capacity since 1991. I am a product of the St. Bernard Parish Public Schools (1972-85). I attended P.G.T. Beauregard High School, where I graduated salutatorian. I attended Louisiana State University from 1985 to 1991 and graduated with a B.S. in secondary education, English and German. I taught for two years in St. Bernard, my home, then, moved to Georgia and taught German (1993-94) and English (1994-98) for Rome City Schools. I earned my master's degree in guidance and counseling from the State University of West Georgia (1996-98). I was accepted to the counselor education program at the University of Northern Colorado in 1998, and they gave me money to attend. I began my Ph.D. in counselor education, but decided I liked all of those statistics courses well enough to transfer to the Department of Applied Statistics and Research Methods. I graduated with my Ph.D. in August 2002. In late 2002, I moved to Muncie, Indiana, to teach at Ball State University. I taught graduate-level statistics and research courses and one undergraduate course, Tests and Measurement. It was in this course that I taught students how bad an idea it was to attempt to measure teacher performance using student standardized test scores. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed my home, New Orleans. My mother chose not to evacuate and had to axe her way out of my sister’s attic. She was missing for a week and ended up in Houston. It was a while before she knew that she would not have to have her right arm amputated. Even though there was no home to go to, I wanted to go home to New Orleans. In July 2007, I returned home and began a new job teaching high school English in St. Tammany Parish. I was told at the university that to “go back” to public school teaching was frowned upon and that I would not likely be able to resume a career teaching at the university. I had to reckon with that idea. But I love to teach. High school, I decided, would be fine with me. And it has been fine for the past nineteen years. I love my kids.