Pastor Joshua Robertson didn’t set out to become a leader in the education freedom movement, but when his community called, he responded.
In fact, it was several phone calls. In the spring of 2020, Robertson’s phone kept ringing. “I get 40 to 50 calls a day from parents,” said Robertson, senior pastor of Rock Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
This was the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown. The shift to distance learning has given parents a closer look at their children’s schooling, but they don’t like what they see.
“All these parents were complaining about the school system,” Robertson recalled. “They would say to me, ‘My kids are smart. I don’t understand why they’re not doing well academically.'” Add to that the violence in our schools.
Desperate parents turned to a different kind of teacher.
inflection point
There are serious problems with our education system, and Robertson knows it’s especially hard for children in under-resourced communities like the one he serves. He experienced firsthand the failure of the system: Robertson graduated high school without knowing how to read properly.
Robertson went to college to play football but failed his freshman year.
Before that failed, Robertson met a bishop while playing the organ in a local church. But without attending school or participating in sports, he fell into a dangerous lifestyle, surrounded by unsavory characters and illegal behavior. The bishop seemed to feel the need to intervene from hundreds of miles away, calling Robertson on one such indiscretion.
“You’re about to ruin your life, aren’t you?” asked the bishop. He begged Robertson to come see him. Robertson went, and Bishop enrolled both of them at the local community college. The two sat side by side doing homework.
“Within a week, he discovered I couldn’t read,” Robertson said. “It’s amazing – you can go to school for twelve years and no one notices that you can’t read. But, because the bishop took the time to sit with me, he saw it immediately. Over the next year Here, he sat with me day after day and taught me how to read.
The man who dropped out of college because he couldn’t read went on to earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree.
When the system fails kids
“My failure was because of the system, not just the teacher,” Robertson explained. “There were a few teachers who cared about me. But every system has gaps. And I fell into a gap.”
Many educators thought he had behavioral problems. “Every elementary school I went to kicked me out,” Robertson said. “What people don’t realize is that my behavior masked my reading problems. In fifth grade, I got in trouble for hitting a kid in class. I hit him as a distraction. The teacher told students to Reading aloud, I had a hunch that she was going to ask me to read.
This behavior is common among students who have been abandoned by the system. “They will do pranks because they would rather suffer the disciplinary consequences than be embarrassed in front of the class.” Robertson said students who don’t do well at school often lack any support at home, which leads them to get into even worse situations. situation.
“They have a profitable industry right outside their doorstep – the pharmaceutical industry,” Robertson said. “It was right on their block. When I was 10 or 11 years old, I knew where people were doing crack.”
Robertson said this The school-to-prison pipeline start. So he gave himself a mission: “We’re trying to cut this pipeline.”
from failure to prosperity
Parents asked him the same question: “Can my child come to church?”
The pastor’s first thought was: “What are you doing here?” Then Robertson remembered everything the bishop had done for him all those years ago.
“He’s inconvenienced me his whole life in order to help me,” Robertson said.
When a church member lost her job due to the pandemic, Robertson realized she could help students with homework and provide other programming. “We took a risk and hired her,” he said. “We already have facilities in our Sunday school classrooms.”
Six students from the local school district began coming to the church for online learning. Newly hired study instructors help them complete assignments and ensure students are seated in front of computers with cameras on during live classes.
Word spread through the community. Even after schools resumed in-person classes, demand continued to grow. Therefore, by 2021, Rock City Learning Center (RCLC) was born.
During the 2021-22 school year, RCLC served 30 students – 29 Some of them failed in school. By the end of the school year, 10 students had an average score of 90 points or higher in all subjects, 12 students had an average score of 80 points or higher, and six students had an average score of 70 points or higher.
In the second year, RCLC students made even more significant gains. About 90 percent of students scored an average of at least 70, and more than half scored 90 or higher.
Learning centers fill the void left by the system, and students who failed are now thriving.
Set an example for others
“These kids need intervention — disruption to certain aspects of our schools that limits their ability to provide an effective education to all students,” Robertson said.
RCLC prioritizes students. Students receive instruction and curriculum from an accredited public cyber charter school. They work in small groups and are guided by trained study guides.
Robertson believes that the real innovation of RCLC lies in “the integration of academia and the entire community.” Learning instructors are not educators; They are “community members who love our children.” They provide support that goes beyond academics, tailoring the experience to each student.
When students receive the support they need, they thrive. “When children are loved, supported and disciplined, you see incredible confidence in them,” Robertson said. “They understand…that they are in a place that cares about them and their specific needs, challenges and talents. “
Founded by Robertson black pastoral education alliance (BPUE) Help others replicate the RCLC model. There are now three learning centers in Harrisburg, with another opening in nearby York. BPUE is Yas Awards FinalistThe award recognizes an organization that provides “sustainable, transformative, outstanding and license-free education” and has received a $500,000 grant to continue its work.
fight for educational freedom
In June, Pennsylvania’s Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill This would cut funding for charter schools. Robertson is fighting the effort, noting that Pennsylvania’s charter schools “serve a higher percentage of low-income and non-white students than traditional school districts.” If the bill becomes law, the schools most affected will be the cyber charter schools where RCLC students attend.
Another goal of Roberston’s political struggle was to propose a Lifeline Scholarship. The program will award restricted-use scholarship accounts to students from Pennsylvania’s lowest-performing schools. In 2023, Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro withdrew from a budget agreement This will provide $100 million for Lifeline scholarships.
On June 10, Robertson and nearly 60 other pastors and educators signed a open envelope Shapiro and state legislative leadership. The letter calls on leaders to oppose cuts to online charter schools and enact Lifeline Scholarships.
The next day, Roberston led a rally for educational freedom at the state Capitol. He also published an article Column Implore Shapiro to invest in educational freedom. “Today, a child’s zip code determines whether she can read or do basic math,” Robertson wrote. “This is simply unacceptable.”
It has been a long journey for this pastor from failing college to leading the fight for educational freedom. Looking back on his experience, he said: “The bishop started with one person: me. The person he invested in is now investing in other people. That’s how it’s supposed to work, right?”
