Imagine taking a teaching position with no training at one of the worst urban schools in Philadelphia. Now imagine that the building was crumbling and rat infested, your 6th grade class was struggling with illiteracy, you had no textbooks, curriculum or guidance, and violence and obscenities were daily phenomena. Christina Asquith doesn’t have to imagine those things; she lived them. In 1999, with burning questions about why inner-city Philadelphia schools (and those in other cities) were failing, Asquith joined the ranks and became a teacher with no formal training at a time when the schools were desperate for them. Before...
