ABSTRACT
In the early 1980s, I reluctantly resigned as a high school English teacher from a public school district in a Midwestern city Suffocated and dispirited from a decade of working in a paternalistic, bureaucratic system, I came to believe that there was nothing I could do to change the system from within. In fact, any attempts that I made only incurred my administrators’ displea sure. As a result, I received two punitive transfers two years in a row despite strong teaching evaluations and being voted favorite teacher in one of the system’s large inner city high schools. Keenly aware that the city’s schools were consistently failing to reach many of the poorest children and unable to find or create spaces for innovation and creativity, I walked away from my tenured position, feeling all the while like a deserter.
