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North Denver Schools - Finger Pointing and Looking in the Mirror

Tuesday, January 30 at 9:29 AM

This Speakout has not been edited

By Mike Archer, Golden

As a graduate of North High (1968), Horace Mann Junior High and Bryant-Webster Elementary I watch with great sadness the decline of those wonderful schools.

I still remember so many fine teachers - Mrs. Moore the librarian at Bryant-Webster; Mrs. Papadeas (my ATF), Mr. Brewer and Mr. Lucas at Horace-Mann and Mr. Zordani and Mr. Verderber at North. The complete list would be very long. Were there any bad teachers? None that I remember. There were some strict teachers. You didn’t turn your head in third-grade class when Mrs. Ballou was speaking, that’s for sure!

It seemed to me then that if you came to class ready and willing to learn, you would learn. That’s not rocket science. As for any child then or now, the distractions were many but almost everyone held the primary charter of getting an education.

So, what’s the problem today? There has been much finger pointing and some outright ridiculous actions - such as the wholesale firing of teachers at North. The problems have been a long time coming and they will be a long time in repair, even assuming the correct path is eventually taken.

The correct path, it seems to me, is going to require less finger pointing and more looking in the mirror, especially by the Hispanic/Latino communities whose students comprise the majority of students in those schools today. I’ve repeatedly requested historical statistics from DPS, to no avail. It’s clear a chart of the rise in the Hispanic/Latino population has a very high correlation with the fall in graduation rates; but no one wants to go there for fear of political-correctness.

There are gangs. There is a language problem of enormous proportions. They are no standards for the students - they dress as they like, come and go as they like. Funding is inadequate. New plans come and go almost as quickly as the kids jump on and off campus.

Still and all, the primary reason for the decline is students who do not come prepared, are unready to learn and have no pride in getting an education. This doesn’t start with the teachers, the administrators or the budget. This starts at home. If you are truly ready to learn the opportunity has always been there and is there today.

I must agree with former governor Dick Lamm and representative Tom Tancredo who have said the current Hispanic/Latino culture places too little emphasis on the traditional American values of pride of achievement and goal-directed action.

Students need to learn English early on in their school years. If we need bilingual classes at the high school level something is already seriously wrong. I remember the Hungarian immigrants at Bryant-Webster who came over during and after the Hungarian uprising of 1956. All of them could write and speak English within months of their arrival in America. There parents insisted on it and so did the schools.

They received no special privileges and achieved for that very reason: they had no other choice and were grateful for the opportunity. No one was rich in our neighborhood and many people of all races were very poor. I remember one Greek immigrant student; his t-shirts were made of rags and - yes - paper. But his single mother sent him off to school every day. He graduated in the top of his class at North and is today a very successful contractor in California.

No student of any color should get a free pass. We’ve done this for decades and the results are obvious in the poor achievement of the students and the decline in the schools. We’ve instilled a sense of entitlement that has led to years of one excuse after another. “The road to hell is paved with good excuses,” my Uncle Gene often reminded me. My grandmother was more succinct, “Shut up and get to school before you are late!” Continuously lowering the bar for students lowers the bar for the school as well as the community. The end result is the unmitigated disaster we now have on our hands. Pride, critical to success in America, gets washed down the drain.

Parents need to insist their children attend school regularly and are ready to work. They need to instill the American dream that hard work pays off. It may take time, but it has worked for every other minority that has come to this country; it can work for the Hispanic/Latino community, too. However DPS and the community can aid these goals is the way to go and the only way to go: Mandatory attendance to conferences and English language for parents, dress standards for students, scholarships to encourage excellence; whatever it takes.

In my years at Bryant-Webster, Horace-Mann and North High there was very little racial animosity. Bryant-Webster at the time was probably fifty percent Hispanic. I’m certain the differential in graduation rates as a function of race were very small. North was perhaps fifty percent Caucasian, thirty percent Hispanic and twenty percent Jewish. The smartest girl in my class at Bryant-Webster was Hispanic. There were several Hispanic kids in the top 10-25 of my graduation class. (No, I wasn’t in there with them!) Almost everyone graduated. We were all students and children first; race was scarcely an issue. That was because no one played the race card to gain advantage or privilege. You went to school, you studied, you learned - you graduated. Let me say it again: It is not rocket science. Take a good look in the mirror. It’s reality check time, folks.

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