Speak Up: Requiring excellence for all 

As a teacher, one of the most crushing things you can see is a student who does not work up to his or her potential.

When you ask that student why he is not doing his work, the typical answer is, “I don’t see why I’m doing this. I am never going to use it.”

For some students, the justification is easy: “It’s going to get me into college.”

But for those students who don’t have a four-year degree in their plans, the answer is more complicated. While I support the adoption of the “a-g” requirements, the courses required for acceptance to California public universities, I believe the answer for these students is not to put them all on the same path, but to put them on the right path.

Socrates often spoke to his students about areté, or achieving your highest human potential.

All students have the right to examine what they are doing in school, and understand how their work is going to help them achieve their goals. If what they are doing is not helping them move towards their goals, then it is our job to change the system to make it work for them.

We must work with our schools to make sure students have the opportunity to pursue their dreams, regardless of whether a college degree fits into those plans.

We want our students to be ready to pursue whatever career path they choose, and achieve their highest potential. One of the primary goals of education should be to help students identify their strengths and give them an opportunity to demonstrate their potential using those strengths.

That is why I worked with my colleagues to pass a resolution requiring that by 2012, students will need to take “a-g” requirements in order to graduate from the Los Angeles Unified School District. We also mandated that by the 2006-07 school year, all students will have access to the “a-g” requirements at their school sites.

Current “a-g” requirements put students on the right track for college admission. But the fact remains that many students will travel down the less emphasized and yet equally valuable path to an apprenticeship, trade school, or community college. While we must have high expectations for these students, we must allow them to meet requirements for their career goals.

When we drafted the resolution, we made sure to include a clause that would allow for English language learners who enter high school in 11th or 12th grade, certain special education students, and students wishing to pursue a career technical education pathway to obtain a waiver from the “a-g” requirements. That said, we now have to make sure the CTE courses are no less rigorous or standards-based than the required “a-g” classes.

In recent years, the “a-g” requirements have been augmented slightly to allow for some technical and vocational classes to be included. However, at the majority of our high schools, the only classes that qualify are photography or video production classes. We must make sure more technical and vocational classes qualify for these requirements.

Aristotle laid out a clear pathway for achieving areté. First, have a definite, clear goal. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your goal: opportunity, rigor and support. Third, adjust all your means to that end.

Our schools should be set up to help students with these steps. We must use all of our means to help our students live their dreams.

I am not saying that we want to send our future electricians and auto mechanics into the world without the ability to read, solve equations or conduct research. I am saying that there should be a balance between the traditional academic requirements and the requirements of cultivating a non-traditional career path.

As we are setting expectations for our students, let’s not forget that all of our students have different abilities and expectations for themselves. We have to stop assuming that we know what is best for all of our students all of the time and let them take some ownership over their education. If our students are on their way to achieving areté, let us make every effort to nurture that, not bury it under a mound of standardized requirements.

John W. Gardner, a Los Angeles native, fought hard throughout his life to convince people that a quality education meant encouraging excellence in whatever students wished to pursue. “An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will neither have good plumbing or good philosophy. Neither its pipes or its theories will hold water.”

When students come to our schools, we make them a promise. We promise them that hard work in our classrooms will lead to success in their lives. We need to keep this promise to both the plumber and the philosopher. We have to give our students the kind of education they deserve and create expectations that help our students realize their highest personal potential.

This is what I pledge and I hope you will join me in my fight to make our schools a place where aretéis achievable, not just for those who want to go to college, but for every student who has a dream.