Opinion: When you let kids write about education....

The No Child Left Behind standardized test treats students of color as inferior, not good enough. The test marginalizes non-English speaking cultures. It makes students feel as if their culture isn’t good enough because they must change or hide their culture to learn English so they can pass these tests. Students who come into this world learning English as a second language have their intelligence silenced. The Los Angeles Unified School District takes state-approved textbooks, curricula, teachers and tests, and puts them into a school such as Crenshaw, where fewer than 1% of the students are white, or Garfield, where 37% are English-language learners. Is it a wonder that so many students are failing? Then, they expect the students to be engaged in learning from the European point of view while their culture is kicked to the curb. The school district still wonders why a majority of students drop out and fail? Instead of changing this problem, they point the finger at the students. Strike three.

Since before the East Los Angeles Chicano blowouts of the 1960s, students have been asking their schools to make learning more relevant. This is not an excuse. It’s a demand! [...] Somos Raza attracts students to learn because they study the problems facing them as Latinos, and challenge what they are taught in regular classrooms. Members meet after school and on the weekends, organize rallies, unite black and brown students, and clean the streets to improve their communities. They believe that schools are lying to them, so they study the beauty of their culture and learn about their true history. By not learning the truth, Latinos are learning how to continue their own oppression. Crenshaw High School Somos Raza member Jonathan said, “They’re brainwashing us in school.�

Some of the most influential people in our communities are gangbangers. They do whatever it takes to get what they want. Most people feel the gangbangers’ goals are wrong, but at least they follow through on what they started. Teachers who just pass students along are giving up on their goals and quitting on what they came to our schools to do. If schools gave gang members more opportunity, they could become positive role models instead of negative ones. Don’t give up on them so easily, because if you believed in them, they could be future teachers. [...] We need to find a way to make these people the teachers. Gang members are not just ignorant; they’re misunderstood.

I understand that money is not easy to come by, but our schools should be top priority. I don’t have the answers for that, but the fact that we give so much of our national budget to our military and so little to our schools tells us that our priorities are more on aggression toward others than affection toward our youth. Let people live, and let our children learn!

The No Child Left Behind Act and its definition of a highly qualified teacher does not work well in our communities. The act defines a teacher as “highly qualified� when he or she has subject-matter qualifications and university teaching credentials. But how about communication qualifications and culturally empowering credentials? If you don’t have credentials we can respect, then you don’t have the quality we need.