A Teacher Learns New Lessons on the Road

Jason Kamras visited more than 40 states as 2005 National Teacher of the Year and is ready to share what he's learned with his students and colleagues. (By Chris Combs -- For The Washington Post)

"Kids in his class were always deeply engaged in high-level thinking," said Douglas Williams, who is now training to be a school administrator. "I was able to look to him as a role model and as an inspiration."

At Sousa, Kamras successfully lobbied to double the time students spent in math class each week. Afterward, the number of children rated as having "below basic" levels on the Stanford 9 math exams was halved, from 80 percent to 40 percent.

Kamras's success led him from Sousa to the White House Rose Garden, where President Bush announced that he was America's top teacher.

He received the honor at 31, an unusually young age for the distinction, Fleishman said.

Scholastic shipped him to gatherings of 15 in Peoria, Ill., and crowds of 10,000 in Los Angeles. It sent him to Japan, where children were eager to get his autograph. Fleishman said Kamras was "superb" from the beginning, much more so than some previous teachers.

Kamras was harder on himself.

"I really wanted to hit it out of the ballpark every time," Kamras said. "I didn't want to waste an incredible opportunity. So it motivated me to try and make changes to be effective."

The more he shared about his teaching, Kamras said, the more members of his audience would share about themselves. And the more he learned.

In Virginia, a middle school principal pulled him aside. He told Kamras that before No Child Left Behind, he used to assign "a warm body" to teach his low-performing classes.

Now, the principal said, he puts his best teachers with his lowest-performing students so they can meet testing standards. It changed Kamras's opinion of the legislation.

"Like many teachers, I had thought NCLB was an attack on public education," Kamras said. "Now I have a much more positive view, because it's forcing everyone to pay attention to the achievement of children who'd been ignored."

The anecdote became a part of his talks. If the story made a difference in Kamras's philosophy, he said, maybe it could inspire other teachers to embrace some parts of the act.

Making a difference in education policy began to pique his interest. Kamras is now considering taking a more political role to continue bringing issues of inequality to public attention.

But first, he wants to help Sousa's math scores continue their climb. Touring the country, he picked up a trick to impress his students. Using addition and multiplication, in four steps he can tell how many siblings and pets a student has.

"It's like magic," Kamras said. "And it's how I'm going to introduce algebra."