An Outrageous Education

Walking through the prison-like gates of Locke High School in Watts last week it was hard not to summon up Dante's admonition to those on the threshold of hell: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." Graffiti was everywhere -- on the walls, on the floors, on the benches, on the flagpole. Though classes were in session, kids were everywhere, too -- aimlessly roaming the halls, hanging outside in the quad, kicking in the bathrooms. Relatively speaking, it was a good day at Locke. Ever since last September when the Los Angeles Unified School District widened the school's enrollment area to include a swath of Bloods' turf -- and simultaneously reduced security -- there had been internecine fighting between rival Crips and Bloods gangs on a campus which until then had been exclusively Crips territory. Early on in the year, an assistant principal had been assaulted and hospitalized. Over the previous few weeks, three fires have been set; violence reached a new, all-time low recently when a lockdown was imposed after parents stormed the campus and started brawling alongside their little gangstas.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the saga of Locke, let me back up. Here's the short version: When Locke opened in the wake of the infamous Watts riots, it was seen as a beacon of hope in a blighted neighborhood. Forty-one years on, it is one of the poorest performing high schools in L.A., which, given the appalling state of urban education in California today, automatically qualifies it to be in the running for the title of Lousiest High School in America. You don't believe me? Consider this: 1,000 or so kids started 9th grade at Locke in 2001, about 240 graduated in 2005, and some 30 actually qualified to apply to a California state public university. Translation: Three percent of the Class of 2005 met the minimum requirements for admission to a UC or Cal State campus. You don't need a high school diploma to figure out what happened to the rest of the class: no doubt an unacceptably high number are either dead or in prison.

Though Locke is an extreme case of what President Bush, in one of the most memorable quotes of his presidency, called "the soft bigotry of low expectations," it is by no means an isolated case. According to a report issued last week by America's Promise Alliance, only 70% of all U.S. students graduate on time with a regular diploma, and about 1.2 million drop out annually. Things are worse in urban schools. Graduating from high school in one of America's largest 50 cities, says the report: "amounts, essentially, to a coin toss;" 52% of urban students complete high school with a diploma. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose wife Alma is chairwoman of the Alliance, called the situation a "catastrophe."

And what would cause society to countenance such a national catastrophe?

Racism, posits Marco Petrucci, President and COO of Green Dot, the upstart charter organization that is set to take control of Locke High School on July 1. What else can it be? he asks, citing a well-worn observation that if 50% of the trash in LA didn't get picked up, there would be rioting in the streets and the mayor would be out of a job. "But somehow, 50% of our kids drop out of school and there's not a peep," he says. "No one says anything. I don't get it, where is the outrage?"

Former LA Schools Superintendent Gov. Roy Romer, chairman of Ed in '08, the advocacy group pushing to make education a major campaign issue this year, explains it this way: "We don't care enough about educating urban kids. We don't care enough about black and brown kids in the inner city, and we don't care enough about poor kids -- it's poor as much as it is racial. We just don't care enough."

Locke students have their own take on the problem. Says one student with a shrug: "We ghetto."

I don't get it, where is the outrage?

Donna Foote is a former Newsweek correspondent whose new book "Relentless Pursuit, a Year in the Trenches with Teach For America," (Knopf, April, 2008) chronicles the experiences of four Teach for America recruits assigned to teach in L.A.'s Locke High School.

Comments

[1will]

So who is to blame? It must be Bush. The problem is it's Liberals and Black community leaders that protest when you attempt to kick violent or disruptive kids out of school. Everyone deserves an education according to them. Of course these kids don't come to school for an education. They come to socialize or terrorize their fellow students and the faculty. When they finally cross the line and the school system at last makes a stand the protestors crawl out of the woodwork telling us what little angels the students are and how racist the system is. Of course the school cannot comment on a minors case because of the law so you only get the parents point of view on the evening news.
I attended an inner city school for 6 yeas and saw this every day. My wife spent about 8 years teaching at a similiar school and also so the same thing, only from a faculty point of view.
The change needs to occur with the families first. A school cannot make up for 24/7 piss poor parenting.

[bwsmith]

Good schools can and do "make up for 24/7 piss poor parenting." I'm thinking of a school awards ceremony a few years back, when a teacher sat in loco parentis for a student, now a junior at Dartmouth, whose alcoholic father had already given up on him, having told him he would never amount to anything. In another case, a student whose father was under court order to stop abusing his family called instead a teacher when he found out that he had been accepted to MIT (in addition to Berkeley, UCLA, and others). In fact, in cases of "piss poor parenting", the school is the only real alternative available to students who want a better shot at life. Thus the urgency of reforming inner city education.

[1will]

In the real world a few teachers might make a difference for a few disadvantaged kids. The majority of the failing students at these schools such as Locke High School don't care about an education, their parents don't care about an education and if their grandparents care then it's likely they have no control over the kid anyway. Going to school is a social event for the kids and free babysitting for the parents. Correction: change that to parent since most of these kids are lacking a father. When the kids fail the usual excuses are made and blame shifted. It's politicaly incorrect to point out that a child's homelife makes the biggest difference in how well or poorly that child does in school. It's much easier to blame the government, teachers, funding or racism for failure than a lack of parenting.

[joeholla]

Bad parents are not an excuse for bad schools. The school should be a refuge from the poor home life.

The parents are to blame and should be taken to task about their failure but we give up on the kids just because everyone else has.

The government dose not have direct control of the parents but it dose have control of the schools.

government, teachers, funding, racism, and a lack of parenting are all part of the problem and need to be addressed .

[bwsmith]

I don't care if it's politically incorrect; you are correct, at least about the importance of parenting and the culture of the home. When I left Locke on Friday, I saw a 3-year-old playing with dice right by the school's front gate; I had earlier witnessed him watching those I presume to have been his parent or parents and friends shooting dice for money after school, about a half-hour earlier. He was playing with the same dice! In addition, 2 other girls, about 16 years old, were standing nearby holding their infants; one had been born only 2 weeks earlier, and a woman who works on our campus was chiding her for bringing the baby out so young.

These are facts; but the question is, after we're done blaming them, WHAT DO WE DO NEXT? Just give up, as if our denunciations had actually achieved something?

[ShawnMichel]

The great gray American herd cares, in order, about the following three things: Consumption, Entitlement, and Sloth. Greed aids and abets all. Education = warehousing my little shit until 3 PM. It does *not* mean educate--to lead forth from within, to *educe*. Can you get that through your thick head already? Education in this country is about indoctrination: to the herd, to the above-mentioned three most important things, to the idiocy of nationalism, war, and anti-reason (see: religion). These are facts, beyond dispute.

Please read. (I know, I know: you're an average American pig and read, on average, less than a book a year, but work with me here.) Try reading John Taylor Gatto's excellent, seminal The Underground History of American Education. Use it to wake your sorry, slovenly American ass up. Locke isn't failing one bit. It's performing admirably, above expectations. It's providing necessary cannon fodder to the military machine; it's providing bodies to the prison corporations; it's providing cheap labor to the Guilded Pigs who run this country.

Wake up, folks. Do it now.

[lungfish]

I think that the first issue is safety... if we have to put zones under martial control until the
negative elements are contained or removed, then do it. If we have to develop competent management and teaching then do it. If we have to hold unwed mothers and their babies fathers accountable then do it.
Why should society and social services carry the burden? If we have to come up with national service programs that put kids and young adults out of the ghetto and into other places, then do it. If we have to decriminalize drugs to make space and funding available for treatment then do it.
The sooner that we dissolve these inner city ghettos the better. We have a problem with social programs supporting these situations so lets come up with jobs and wean these people off their asses. If the police can't control neighborhoods then bring in the national guard and have them sweep the place for weapons, drugs and malcontents.
If a teacher or principle fears for their life at the hands of students then tighten up the situation and make it safer. People have rights but they also have accountability. Children have a right to an education and parents have an obligation to support their children... start structuring law and social programs accordingly.

[BrighterStar]

The problem is that the school is located in the inner city and inner cities in this country have become dysfunctional. A culture has developed in the inner city that does not value hard work and education. That being the case, it should not surprise anyone when the schools in those areas do not function.

[SamThornton]

Here's a bright idea. Let's blame the victims. That way, we can dismiss the problems and feel good about ourselves. Doggone those ghetto residents. If they'd just dress better and get jobs in our wonderful economy and be more like the rest of us, everything would be just peachy keen. My only question, how many dim bulbs does it take to make a BrighterStar?

[Eng]

I worked at Locke a few years ago. Yes, "inner city" schools do not function. But you cannot blame the kids. You CAN blame LAUSD and its amazingly incompetent employees. Kids may be "ghetto" but they are capable of learning. And the culture of "hard work and education" can be taught. When I was there what bothered me most was the outrageous incompetence of the adults involved on that campus.

[BrighterStar]

I'm not blaiming the kids only pointing out that the problem goes beyond what is happening in the school. Schools do not opperate in a vacume, but rather are a part of the community in which they exist. I have no doubt that you are right that the teachers could be doing a better job, but that is only a part of the problem.

[JScott]

Get real folks the blame goes DIRECTLY to the passage of proposition 13 and Governor Ronald Reagan.
The public schools in California no longer had a stable funding source. All voters and taxpayers cared about was lowering taxes and damn the consequences. And blame Howard Jarvis.
Before that California public schools were among the best in the country and it made California the 6th largest economy in the world. But the constant drumbeat of neocon evangelfundie rethuglicans of lower taxes lower taxes lower taxes and all will be fine finally came true and this is the result and Locke is a worse case, all California school districts have to scramble for funds all the time, and governator Arnold is goin to do it again. Yeah parents deserve some of the blame and racism and poverty are part of it,
but the big part is loss of a stable funding source, and it's been done at our own country's peril.

[BrighterStar]

Funding is not the problem. The problem is that they are serving a community that does not value education. That is more likely caused by liberal programs that have have replaced self sufficiency with government dependence.

[wolfgangmo]

Brighter star. Let me ask you this. Given that your argument is that funding is not the problem and by extension that funding would not have any effect of the quality of eduction, then why do they uber rich send their kids to super well funded private academies where all the teachers are Ph.D.'s?

If "throwing money" at the problem is not the solution then why do the wealthy use it so often?

Funding is an issue and only the self absorbed would think otherwise.

[Colmore]

Why are the parents expecting the schools to raise their children for them? Maybe if young girls stopped having babies they do not know how to raise, and young guys stopped thinking having lots of children is a "badge of honor" some improvements could be made. I see girls on TV, searching for their babies fathers, one has had 10 guys tested so far, no luck!!! These babies do not stand a chance in life. At the very least a child needs to know who their father is!! I doubt anything will change in my lifetime. The parents need to take a more active roll in their kids lives. They need a family, not a "gang". When gang graffitti is discovered all known members of the gang should be rounded up, and made to clean it up. What would be wrong with that? Take responsibility for your own actions. It would be a start.

[Colmore]

Why are the schools always to blame.? Where are the responsible parents?? If the parents took an ACTIVE roll in raising their kids, this would not be happening. Letting the parents slide by, bearing no responsibility, shows the "kids" that it is not their fault. These thugs started as innocent children. Who let them down? What values are they taught, if any? Young people join gangs to "belong" If the families did their job, they would "belong" with their parents. Too many unwed mothers, too many irresponsible young fathers. I have seen young men on TV, bragging about how many children they have with different women. No job, but lots of kids. I see young women trying to find the fathers of their children. One has had 10 men tested so far, still no father. Maybe it is time for these young people to realise that the best thing they can give their child, at the very least, is the NAME of their father!!! My heart goes out to the decent parents who are stuck living in the school district.

[katmeyster]

We are not outraged because we don't care. If it's not affecting us directly, than it must not matter. This attitude is becoming more prevalent, but the classism and racism that underlies it has not changed. Remember that undereducated people are less likely to vote, less likely to understand their own circumstances, less likely to feel efficacious, less likely to participate, and less likely to require their politicians to provide their basic human rights -- leaving more for the wealthy and powerful. I know this is cynical, but someone please prove me wrong. AND, I know that in the long run the entire society will fail without an educated populace, but we don't seem to be very good at long term thinking either.

[January]

Get real. Jonathon Kozol got awards for the book he wrote in 1967 about the schools in Boston. He wrote a similar book about the schools in the South Bronx in the late 1990s; more awards. Nothing changed over those years.

It's probably true that you could go to any major urban city and find schools like Locke. Poor urban people have no say, no clout, until they begin to burn down their neighborhoods. If you are not rich and well-organized, the politicians are not listening. Instead, the family has been weakened by removing the social safety net that allowed poor single mothers to pay attention to their kids' education.

Yeah, "We ghetto." That says it all. Maybe add, "And nobody cares."

[clr2]

Excuses, excuses. What about caring about yourself? What about raising your family? What about not having children out of wedlock?

[bwsmith]

Beside the point, again. The fact is, these kids are having children out of wedlock. Simply repeating the fact and shaking one's head dismissively gets us nowhere; in fact, that is the strategy typical of those teachers who come to our school, are totally ineffective, and abandon it for an easier career in a safer location. If that's what some want to do, fine; but then they have no right to pretend that they are contributing to solving the problem, or have ideas worth repeating--they are merely identifying problems that are patent.

[bwsmith]

"Hold responsible", like its cousin "hold accountable", is a current euphemistic cliche usually meaning "blame" or "punish". Having worked at the school for nearly 7 years, I have a hard time seeing why any outsiders would want to punish the students (along with their neighborhood and parents) even more than they already have. Once we create much more nearly equal social conditions that help turn these students into better and more productive citizens, it will be more reasonable to blame them for their failings; but until then the trite sentiments behind comments like these fail to point towards solutions.

[clr2]

Locke has always been a horrible school. In 1976 I played on my high school's girls basketball team. When we played at Locke the gym was empty - due to security problems. There were police at our bus. Don't act like this is a new scene for Locke students it has been this way for at least 32 years. Who put the graffiti on the walls and who beat up the assisstant principal? Racists, the staff, or maybe George Bush? I think you have to hold the neighborhoods, parents, and especially the students responsible for the actions at Locke.