This is an optimistic story. This is a story about the young people graduating from our public schools. They have the knowledge, insight, and skill to see the games that unscrupulous adults are playing on them and on society. They speak out. They give all of us hope.
Axel Brito was the valedictorian of Hollywood High School, the student with the highest grade point average. He might have spoken in platitudes, like so many graduation speakers, but instead he criticized the school board members who had danced on the strings of billionaire supporters. School officials tried to interfere as he spoke, but the audience insisted that he be allowed to finish. The audience chanted “Let him speak, let him speak.” The article quotes the graduation speech in full (with a few errors). Watch it!
Before I commence, let us have a moment of silence for the 19 Uvalde students who will never have the opportunity to graduate as we do today.
“Achieve the honorable.” This motto has been driven through us repeatedly at every stage of our high school career, and during this time I have come to meet dedicated teachers who embody this to a tee. Teachers of this and other schools dedicate their lives laboring for us, the students, because they want and need our generation to succeed and change the future for the better.
Yet, at times the soundness of it falters. After all, does achieving the honorable mean lying about your volunteer hours and having this deed actively encouraged by the administration? Does it mean to have your grades, including my own, artificially inflated through the lowering of standards and driving our overworked teachers up a wall because of it? Does it mean to leave students unpunished for their transgressions to save face? Does it mean to lie and keep parents out of the loop during events that put us in danger, and more so to have a security system that is in no way keeping us safe? Does it mean to blame students due to the school’s own incompetence? I’d like to think not.
Despite this, I don’t blame this school for its wrongdoings, after all this is something that is learned through example.
Nick Melvoin for one abused his position and diverted district resources for his re-election campaign. A campaign which itself is funded not by us, the parents who have children in LAUSD schools, but by external multimillion and multibillion-dollar charter-based super PACs. He is not the man of the people; he is merely a puppet for those who put him into power. Look no further than in 2019 when he provided confidential information to the California Charter School Association, one of his many donors, while the district was being sued to prevent funds from being spent to make schools more accommodating for the disabled. So much for “putting kids first.”
Further so, we have Mónica García as another instance of this charter-centric rhetoric as she too is funded heavily by charter-based organizations. Under the guise of choice and neoliberal ideals, she has ravaged this district with a heavy expansion of charter schools without taking its students into account. Rather she refers to special education students as not “our own kids” and says that “our biggest problem is that most of our kids, all of our kids, can’t read.”
Tanya Ortiz-Franklin and Kelly Gonez don’t escape scrutiny either as they too are a result of charter super PACs and as such are willing to turn a blind eye to charters which allows these pro-charter board members to outvote those that hold the interests of our students.
Therefore, it is no surprise when these board members set out to close and convert Pio Pico Middle School and Orville Wright Middle School into charter schools. Schools they deem as failing due to low enrollment rates as the charters around them owe over 13 million dollars to the district. They don’t have our interests at heart, they have those of the multimillion-dollar charter school industry instead.
Astonishingly our previous superintendents, John Deasy and Austin Beutner, were magnitudes worse as they were put into power by the late billionaire Eli Broad and his heavily charter-centered foundation. Both of these men were put there with no experience in education and left amid controversy and successfully paved the way to privatizing LAUSD. Broad disrupted our education to achieve a district half composed of charters. He, alongside The Gates Foundation and the Walton Foundation, wormed their way through this district to privatize our human right of an education.
Our district may claim higher graduation rates, and this year’s class can attest to that. But, does moving a goalpost closer and closer each year truly mean a growth in students? No, it doesn’t, it just guarantees that we graduate and are pushed into a world we are not ready for. Our students don’t know what failure is because the district and schools themselves will not allow it as they pass extensions and recovery classes time after time.
I have heard administration at different schools, like that of NOW Academy, tell teachers to teach APs like non-APs to ensure higher pass rates. Students at Hollywood entered stunted by the pandemic and can hardly manage basic arithmetic. I can only imagine how much worse it must be at other schools.
This is not about an education. This is not about college. This is not about a career. This is about a system that profits off us and because of this perpetuates the failure of its students in exchange for a gilded view of success that ensures those in power stay in power. So don’t you dare conflate my success to that of this school’s administration and much less so the district. I’m not a product of the district even if I, alongside my class are treated as such. I’m a product of my passion and the passion of my teachers.
Class of 2022, this is not yet over. This is only the beginning of a rough uphill battle that our district has left us unprepared for. Take a stance, start now, and fight back against the system that has left us to rot and fester. Vote these people out of office and keep people like them from further ruining what our teachers worked so hard to foster. Destabilize the status quo.
Meanwhile, on the other coast, in Florida, the valedictorian of his high school class had a dilemma. He had been elected class president of his class every year; he was respected and liked. He has been accepted as a freshman at Harvard University. But he had a problem. He is gay. His principal reviewed his speech and advised him not to mention the fact that he is gay. So he talked about his curly hair and how it made him different from everyone who did not have curly hair.
Valerie Strauss wrote in “The Answer Sheet” blog at the Washington Post:
Senior Class President Zander Moricz was tapped with giving a commencement speech at Pine View School in Osprey, Fla., but was given a restriction not normally attached to such an event.
An openly gay activist who is the youngest plaintiff in a lawsuit against a new state law that restricts what teachers can say in classes about gender and sexual orientation, the teenager said publicly that he had been warned by his principal not to mention his activism or say the word “gay.” If he did, Moricz said on social media, his microphone would be cut off.
So on Sunday, Moricz gave the speech without saying the word — but still managed to speak directly about who he is and why he advocates for the LGBTQ community. He used his curly hair as a metaphor.
“I used to hate my curls,” he said, after removing his graduation cap and running his hands through his hair.
“I spent morning and night embarrassed of them trying to straighten this part of who I am, but the daily damage of trying to fix myself became too much to endure,” he said. “So while having curly hair in Florida is difficulty due to the humidity, I decided to be proud of who I was and started coming to school as my authentic self.”
Pine View Principal Steve Covert did not respond to The Washington Post’s efforts to contact him. Kelsey Whealy, a spokeswoman for Sarasota County Schools, said in a May 10 email that Pine View’s principal “did meet with Zander Moricz to remind him of the ceremony expectations” but did not say he had been told not to say “gay.”
Google his name and watch his speech.
The Florida governor and legislature will now have to add “Don’t say curly” to their regulations.
Freedumb
Beautiful, smart, strong, savvy youth. THIS is what great public schools seed, nurture and share with a nation. No wonder the “Oligarchs” want to plunder the plunder the public good for charter school money. They don’t possess the inner resources needed to participate equitably or ethically in our democracy.
But our youth do and so do their public school teachers.
Many were out protesting yesterday 6/11 with March For Our Lives.
Courageous and Capable.
By the way, why are self-proclaimed “libertarians” always trying to regulate what one can and can’t say and do?
And why are WordPress Happiness engineers always placing comments in random places?
Behind a lot of the so-called libertarians is budding fascist aching to be released, if people are foolish enough to vote for them.
Good question, SomeDAM.
In a related story …
https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/i-was-elected-50-years-ago-today
Thanks for this enlightening post about Michael Moore’s formative years and the development of his social democratic conscience. Public schools with “lefty” teachers made a significant contribution to his ideological foundation. His first democratic action was to become a member of the local school board at age 18.
While reading this, I was reminded how relatively authentic democracy was in those days. Money did not drown out the voice of the people, a common issue in today’s politics.
The speaker in LA did a lot of homework. It is not easy to know the things related in that speech.
Future Laura Chapman? We can hope so.
A high school student has no business knowing all that stuff.
I’m thinking maybe it’s Laura reincarnated.
Or maybe Laura never left and she has just been disguised as a high school student.
A By the way, I’d be curious who now has all of Laura Chapman’s doubtless voluminous research notes.
She knew things about the billionaires that even God doesn’t know.
Even things the billionaires don’t know about themselves.
Nice concluding thought! Sure do miss Laura.
Greg,
I discovered three pieces by Laura that I never posted. She will speak again!
Laura Chapman. What a great human! We all miss her keen intelligence and her compassion.
Some rare good news this morning:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/us/politics/senator-gun-safety-deal.html
It is a pathetic agreement. It will not stop massacres in schools, religious institutions, workplaces or anywhere else. Instead of banning the sale of assault weapons, as Congress did from 1994-2004, it “encourages” states to pass red flag laws and endorses spending billions on mental health and school security. It does not address the 400 million guns now in American homes. It does not raise the age to purchase an assault weapon from 18-21. So…if you are 18, federal law forbids you from buying a handgun but allows you to buy an assault weapon.
I’ll take anything we can get at this point, Diane.
FLERP, sorry to say that this deal doesn’t give much. I wouldn’t be surprised if even the NRA endorses it. The co-sponsor Jon Cornyn of Texas is rated A+ by the NRA and is the #1 recipient of NRA funding. Now pro-gun Senators like him can boast that they took action. They didn’t.
I think there are some good things in the deal. Of course it doesn’t come close to going what I view as far enough. But I cannot imagine any bill that hire what I view as far enough getting 10 Republican votes. That’s a sad statement but it is where we are.
What in the bill will stop future massacres? Do you think Salvador Ramos would have gotten mental health care? Will future Adam Lanzas be deterred by a red flag law? His mother bought the guns.
“goes,” not “hire.”
Expanding background checks to include juvenile records seems like a good thing. Other things in the deal seem like good things. Would it have stopped the Uvalde or Buffalo shootings? No, probably not. But of course that’s exactly the line of argument that Republicans so often use against proposals to tighten gun regulations — i.e., that the proposals won’t have any effect on reducing mass shootings. Some progress is better than no progress, isn’t it?
Do you propose that Democratic Senators not support this deal?
Kyle Rittenhouse used an AR15 bought by a friend. Adam Lanza’s mother bought his AR15. Salvador Ramos did not have a record.
So do you propose that Democratic Senators not support this deal?
I don’t know what they should do. One slice of a loaf—maybe a crumb—is better than nothing at all. But don’t celebrate a crumb.
All true. So do you propose that Democratic Senators not support this deal?
I wouldn’t. But they will. And declare victory.
Sorry for the duplicate comment.
From the statement made by the group of Senators who came up with the bill
“Families are scared, and it is our duty to come together and get something done that will help restore their sense of safety and security in their communities”
So, the bill is about restoring a “sense” of safety and security?
How about actual safety and security? Do those figure in the Senators’ calculus?
Wow…”encourages.” Just like the CDC “encourages” Americans to wear 😷s, & so MANY are “obeying.” The airline & tourism industries (aka, the CE🤑s) are applauding the lifting of requirements that those coming here from other countries show a 72-hr. negative Covid test. Yay!
COVID is over! WHO said so? (No, WHO did NOT.) &, so, science does science, the virus mutates &, maybe, just maybe, this Fall, the pharmaceutical cos. will have some variant-specific vaxxed ready. Has anyone else noticed that we haven’t heard a heckuva lot from Dr. Fauci lately?
I find the word “encourages” to be grossly overused, overrated &, actually, meaningless.
It is NOT “encouraging” that Congress is “encouraging” STATES (not the U.S Govt., NOT Federal laws, but STATES) to pass Red Flag Laws, increase mental health funding & to pass weak, toothless laws that will do NOTHING–as Diane said–to prevent the next Uvalde.
EVERYTHING in the Untied States
is about 💰💰💰💰 ,🤑🤑🤑🤑 (greed) & power. So what if some people die?
Since I don’t have the time due to the fact that I have to make a living, I need to find an academic who will document how self-professed centrists (who, until anyone wants to refute, I have made clear are anything but, at best they are center-right who love fascism without the label) who pine enviously toward the Right. Sophistry, distinctions without differences, and narrow-minded narcissism as political agendas.
Black intellectuals are actually grifters all, transgender and gay orientations are not genetic, but intentionally learned, and white people are the most discriminated category of folks in history. So interesting and I can’t wait to read more!
Ms. Ravitch,
You of course only want students speaking Truth to Power if they agree with your opinions. Imagine a student at a commencement ceremony lecturing the audience about the evils of abortion or socialism, or saying that Trump has been unfairly treated by the news media. Would you praise those students for hijacking a family event to ram their own views down the throats of the audience? We know the answer.
But I give one of the students credit here for criticizing his school; you apparently missed the significance of that criticism even though you quoted the student’s words:
“Does it mean to have your grades, including my own, artificially inflated through the lowering of standards and driving our overworked teachers up a wall because of it? Does it mean to leave students unpunished for their transgressions to save face?…..” That student sounds quite right-wing, no?
I agree with both valedictorians.
I would certainly not reprint here the words of a student who was mesmerized by traitors to the Constitution, nor would I reprint the words of students who were racists, homophobes, or misogynists. You will have to go to Breitbart, Alex Jones, Newsmax or a QAnon site to find those repugnant views celebrated. Not here.
Grade inflation policy was unilaterally foisted by the district on teachers and students as a sneak attack, right before report card grades were due. The district continues to push grade inflation. There’s another mandate coming down in the next few weeks. It’s not a liberal or conservative thing. It’s a money thing. As long as colleges and universities continue to charge tuition, getting “every student” to apply for college means a lifetime of insurmountable debt for many, without the benefits of a degree. Grade inflation helps banks, not liberals. It benefits billionaires.
They are, of course, calling grade inflation “Equity Grading”, as if it’s the “civil right of the 21st century.” Disingenuous cheats.
It also puts even more emphasis on bullsh!t extracurriculars and personal statements written by parents and consultants—the things non-wealthy people can’t afford—in holistic college admissions.
LCT, can you give any details about how the district foisted grade inflation as a last-minute attack right before report cards were due? Was there a memo sent around? If so, can you share it? Very interesting.
Sure. https://www.utla.net/news/utla-responds-lausd-memo-grading
Thanks. Ridiculous.
And now that we are all back to in-person class, the memo continues to hold sway. So, it wasn’t really about helping students during the pandemic. It was about capitalizing on the disaster to change policy permanently. The coming permanent memo begins with a statement that every student must graduate college and career ready, so no student can fail (even if they don’t put in any effort until the end of the semester). It’s based on a system called “Mastery Grading” in which students only need to “demonstrate proficiency” on a single skills test in order to pass. They do not need to gain any subject matter knowledge by studying an turning in work along the course of the semester. They merely need to find the central idea of a short snippet of text to answer a multiple choice question. Once.
There is more evidence that high school grades are becoming less meaningful. In 2010 high school gpa was the best single predator of first year college grades at the University of California. By 2020, standardized test scores were the best single predictor of first year college grades at the University of California.
Sorry, TE. You keep referring to one report from U of CA to claim that SAT is fair and necessary.
But the SAT scores are warped by tutoring. The more parents spend, the more SAT points they buy.
That invalidates the SAT as a predictor of anything but family income.
It seems to me that you must argue that LeftCoastTeacher is wrong. High school grades have not suffered from grade inflation and are just as meaningful as they have always been.
I would like to hear from LeftCoastTeacher. Are high school grades as meaningful as they have always been?
You didn’t answer my wuestion. How can the SAT be meaningful when wealthy parents can hire tutors and raise their children’s SAT scores by as much as 300 points? The SAT measures family income.
TE, answer Diane’s question first. Then answer mine. You asked whether grades hold the same meaning as they did before. To what bygone era do you refer? And why do you ask? What is the significance of my answering that question?
LeftCoastTeacher,
The answer to Dr. Ravitch’s question is that parent’s can more easily buy grades than standardized test scores. Isn’t that why the wealthy choose private prep schools?
The answer to your questions are, 1) I refer to the time before district driven grade inflation that you point out and 2) because the fact that high school grade average does not predicted U of C grades as before is evidence that you are correct that there is district driven grade inflation, and 3) do you understand that your claim about grade inflation requires you to also claim that grades are less meaningful than in the past.
I totally disagree that wealthy parents can more easily but grades than standardized test scores by sending their children to private prep schools. Please cite the evidence that private schools hand out higher grades than public schools. The evidence that coaching and tutoring raise SAT scores is well established. Parents will pay hundreds of dollars PER HOUR for SAT tutors. They know something that you don’t.
The first sentence should be “I totally disagree that wealthy parents can more easily buy grades than standardized test scores by sending their children to private prep schools.”
I’m betting you take advantage of all the “things non-wealthy people can’t afford”. You forgot to include the destitution white folks with means face every day. Lower Manhattan kids with means face so many barriers with which the rest of nation identifies closely.
Dr, Ravitch,
You can read about it here: https://qz.com/1058476/grade-inflation-is-the-worst-at-rich-private-schools-disadvantaging-poor-students/
Another article reporting on the same study is here: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/grade-inflation-is-greater-in-wealthier-schools-study-says/2017/08
Your citations are based on the same study, which was funded by the College Board, which owns the SAT. It is obvious to everyone but you that the College Bard has a financial stake in claiming that SAT scores matter more than GPA.
You have not demonstrated that rich families can raise their children’s SAT scores by hundreds of points by paying for tutors.
No one is buying grades when they are paying private school tuition. They’re buying admission to work for grades.
The time when my district changed its grading policy was December of 2020, only a year and a half ago, not long ago enough to affect whatever study of the University of California, which everyone but you, TE, calls the UC system not the U of C, to which you refer. The U of C is the University of Chicago, just so you know. Have a nice day.
Also, no one is buying test scores when paying for a private tutor. Wealthier students have access to not tutors, but parents. Test scores reflect the income and education of parents, not more.
If one can raise an SAT score by 300 points with a tutor, it doesn’t mean the tutor worked well; it means to test did not work well.
Question for people who understand education (which includes at least 90% of the people who comment here): are “extracurriculars…bull shit”? And is the phenomena of “personal statements written by parents and consultants” as big an issue for anyone who is not trying to get their kids into an exclusive college or university? Just wondering. NYC-centric policies are great for NYC. Are the issues they address close to the issues others around the country face?
We educate whole citizens, not automatons. Our schools, with all the extracurriculars, are the pride of our nation, the envy of the world. Other countries where parents obsess only about competing for academic achievement try to emulate our schools only to fail. Of course, billionaires want to strip our schools down to automaton factories. No, extracurriculars are not bullshit. No, letters of recommendation and interviews are still good ways to screen candidates for schools and jobs, much better than any numerical ratings.
LCT, extracurricular participation is highly correlated with household wealth. Obviously, so is the use of consultants for personal essays. Parents’ ability to review, edit, or completely write personal essays (which depends in part on the parent’s education level and whether the parent is a native English speaker) is also strongly correlated to household wealth. These are wealth proxy tests that put the poor and the unsophisticated at disadvantages.
Rita Maloney– “Speaking truth to power” does not mean delivering random political opinions. Brito as a graduate of LAUSD criticized specific policies of the school board and admin that undermine school funding and dumb down the education provided to students. Moricz spoke against a FL state-imposed school policy that chills speech and makes some students’ lives more difficult. Neither position is about left or right politics, that is your spin.
Mr Smith Goes to Washington. Mr Brito goes to Hollywood.
LET HIM SPEAK!
I was shown the video from the Hollywood Bowl by a parent of a student at another high school here on the West Side. The video is underground viral, that is spread by word of mouth. The ground under Board Member Nick Melvoin and Superintendent Carvahlo’s feet is unstable. Their unsustainable, despicable heartlessness toward the people of Los Angeles is discussed at dinner tables and in the stands at little league games. It cannot continue.
“the games that unscrupulous” FASCIST thinking “adults are playing on them and on society.”
There are fascists living in America and most if not all of them were born here. The easiest ones to spot are dangerously dumber than dumb and are wearing MAGA gear that includes huge TRUMP flags.
The 2nd easiest to identify are mostly Republicans that support Traitor Trump’s BIG LIE and they are running for office.
Look closer and we might see some of these lunatics foaming at the mouth as they rage about this or that unproven conspiracy theory.
& thanks for this post, Diane.
Was very encouraging to see all the kids, teens, young adults at both last weekend’s Wear Orange & yesterday’s March for Our Lives rallies. Everyone was reminded to vote as if our lives depend upon it. They do.
Wonderful young people.