Vantage Point: Celebrating Opportunities for all students 

The weekend of March 3-6 marked the 14th annual Celebrating Opportunities for Hispanic Students Conference in San Antonio, Texas. This conference is hosted annually by the four border states — California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico — and the location rotates among them. Originally started as a means of focusing attention on model programs that helped our burgeoning Hispanic population be more successful, it has evolved from a conference focusing primarily on the needs of one minority group to include the needs of African Americans, Asian Americans and, more recently, our American Indian student population. Mostly, it has evolved into a conference celebrating the positive opportunities of all students in need.

I was struck by the diversity of the model programs that have demonstrated success at closing the achievement gap, reducing dropouts or engaging students in their education. It only reinforced my conviction that one program or one size doesn’t fit all, and that differentiated instructional strategies will ensure that individuals who lie outside the norm will have a chance to be successful. Why hasn’t the governor or the secretary of education ever been to this conference and come to the same conclusion?

Recently, Secretary of Education Richard Riordan and Roy Romer, superintendent of L.A. Unified, appeared on a Fox News forum on the school budget crisis. In a sweeping proclamation, Riordan characterized California’s educational system as dysfunctional, equating all 1,037 districts and county offices in the state with the problems of L.A. Unified and Compton. Riordan places all schools in the same category — failing — and we are constantly evaluated by his perception, which is clouded by his experiences with L.A. Unified and Compton.

Actually, even Compton and L.A. Unified have made significant progress in achievement, if only one looks for it. Not every school in L.A. Unified is failing. As a matter of fact, they can boast of several Academic Decathlon champions. Their district wide API grew by 12 points and all subgroups showed improvement. Compton had similar results. In general, schools throughout the state improved last year and they are continuing to make progress. Needless to say, California has the most diverse student population of any state in the nation, schooled in the most diverse of settings. Does anyone really believe that the needs of every student, every school, every district in our state are the same? Do they believe that Open Court Reading works for every student? Certainly not in my district, which has been very successful with Houghton Mifflin’s reading program. There are many successful math and reading programs available and teachers need to be able to tailor their teaching strategies to meet the needs of their students.

We need to continue to celebrate the opportunities for all our students and promote programs that are successful, and stop accepting criticism from those who merely want to tear down the system because of false impressions.