The Dallas Morning News wrote an editorial praising the valedictorian of Irving High School, in nearby Irving, Texas.
Luis Govea is the personification of the American dream. He came to Texas from Mexico in 2010, knowing only a few words in English. He is now the valedictorian of his class and has received a full scholarship to attend Stanford University.
When he first arrived in the U.S. from Mexico, Luis Govea knew only a few English words, including red, white, blue and apple.
Six years later, he’s been named Irving High School’s valedictorian and got to pick from full-ride scholarships from Yale, Harvard, Rice, Stanford, Dartmouth, the California Institute of Technology and Princeton.
“I applied and thought, ‘I got nothing to lose,’ ” said Luis, who will head to Stanford in the fall. “I never saw myself even last year choosing between those schools, and it’s a beautiful feeling.”
He won the scholarships through QuestBridge, a program that matches high-achieving students from low-income families with selective schools.
Luis is humble and self-effacing.
His personal motto:
“I hope someone sees my story, and it pushes them to try even harder,” Luis said. “Do your best; even if you fail, at least you tried. That’s my motto.”
He learned English by using the Rosetta Stone program on a school computer.
Irving High counselor Laura Zimmer said Luis’ parents have been instrumental to his success.
“I’ve never seen a student like him, and I’ve been teaching for 13 years,” Zimmer said. “When he got the letter from QuestBridge that day, he just sat there and he just cried because he was so happy. He’s not afraid of anything.”
Zimmer first met Luis during his sophomore year when he asked her for a list of clubs. He joined 20, from French club to Keep Irving Beautiful.
“He wants to be a part of everything, but he doesn’t feel the need to be in the limelight,” Zimmer said. “He’s very genuine, and he’s always smiling.”
Luis was on the academic decathlon team, and he was the first in school history to make it to the state competition, coach James Newman said.
“He never let any of us down, and then once he realized that we had complete 100 percent confidence in him, he took on the leadership role, especially this year as a senior,” Newman said. “It’s been an unbelievable journey with Luis, and I am so proud of him. I really am excited about this next chapter in his life.”
Luis is a National AP Scholar and has taken 20 AP exams, earning nine perfect scores of 5 and three scores of 4. He’s awaiting results of this year’s tests.
After poring over pamphlets, websites and lists of majors, Luis thought heavily about Princeton but changed his mind to Yale.
Then, late on May 1, the deadline to commit to a school, he was hovering over the “accept” button for Yale when a Facebook message popped up from a freshman at Stanford. They chatted for two hours, and Luis decided California was where he wanted to be — close to Silicon Valley.
Luis wrote at least 40 essays in the past year for scholarships on topics including chess, tacos, hamburgers, underwear, love letters and his journey from Mexico to the U.S.
He plans on majoring in bioengineering and computer science, and he said he hopes to become a researcher or a professor.
Next time you hear someone complaining about public schools, tell them about Luis. He came to Texas not speaking or reading English, and now he is first in his class at Irving High School, with a full scholarship to one of the nation’s greatest universities.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Congratulations to Luis! He sounds like a brave and determined young man. He is also clearly an outlier. 20 AP exams taken is exceptional even in the most competitive of schools.
I groaned, though, when I read the line that “he learned English by using the Rosetta Stone program.” Really? That’s all he did all day? He wasn’t in ESL classes or bilingual classes or sheltered classes? 6 years fits perfectly with results of language learning that show that it takes 5-7 years to learn a language at an academic level.
I would like to see the rest of his middle school and high school transcripts, because I bet that he learned more language from teachers and books than Rosetta Stone. Luis is not the typical ESL student, and I sincerely hope that his story doesn’t inspire some empty-handed administrator to pour more money down the drain by purchasing Rosetta Stone.
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Having taught ELLs for several decades, his accomplishment is extraordinary. I once had a bright, motivated student that entered in fourth grade with zero English. By the end of high school he got a full scholarship to Cornell Perhaps Luis is a genius, or he knew a great deal of English from Rosetta Stone or another source prior to his arrival. In any case, his achievement and character are exemplary.
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With a huge dose of ironic sarcasm in this comment, I say, “I find it surprising that Luis didn’t give credit to Pearson and Bill Gates for the high stakes rank-and-punish tests linked to the Common Core that must have been the main reason he made it to Stanford — not his cooperation with teachers, his hard work to learn from those teachers, and the amazing support of his parents.”
But where was Pearson and Bill Gates back in the 1990s when I had the privilege to work with a student with a simliar history to Luis, and Gilbert was also accepted to Stanford and MIT? Gilbert selected Stanford too after a phone call from a Stanford student.
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Someone please send this story on to Donald Drumpf.
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I agree. The story here is brief but the achievements are remarkable.
Unfortunately the billionaire donor class that funds greatschools.org has concocted a rating scheme that will tell visitors to that website that the Irving High School earns a “red rating” of 3 out of 10, among the lowest in Texas.
Of course the rating is rigged by masters of metrics paid for by the billionaire donor class. For greatschools.org this donor class includes the Gates, Walton, Robertson, and Arnold Foundations with logos prominently displayed. A list of 19 other supporters includes the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, Bradley Foundation, Goldman Sachs Gives, New Schools Venture Fund among others. All of these supporters want to make public schools an artifact from the past.
The rating scheme is designed to reward schools with the highest test scores in the state, arranged as a bell curve for the state, and some other criteria with a whole lot of fuzzy reasoning propagated as if objective. The 23 “customer ratings” for the Irving High School, from parents and students, are a typical mixed bag. Eva’s schools in NY get a rating of 10.
I urge readers of this blog to understand the metrics and the function of greatschools in redlining and in marketing specific products through payments of fees for the data that the website gathers from users and from a wide range of test scores. Soon to be included in the ratings will be measures of school climate, social-emotional learning, and so on. http://www.greatschools.org/texas/irving/3765-Irving-High-School/quality/
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The outstanding high school in the district in which I taught managed to score a 5 according to Great Schools because the area is diverse with a range of socio-economic levels. The school does not have the highest overall scores in the county; therefore, Great Schools considers the school mediocre, even though many students achieve at high levels.
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Luis is an extraordinary young man. He like so many foreign born students is a credit to his family, school community and an asset to his adopted country.
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For thirty years I taught in public schools that enrolled more than 90% minorities and most of the hardest working learners were immigrant children or the first generation of immigrant parents.
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