Youths Want to Be Heard

By Eileen McNamara, 4/25/2001

It takes two to stage a dialogue, so the young people of Boston will be talking to themselves about education next week at John Hancock Hall.

Busy, busy, busy. That's what organizers of the Teen Empowerment Program have heard from state and city officials who bothered to respond to invitations to the ninth annual Youth Peace Conference on May 5. Most haven't even RSVP'd.

Acting Governor Jane Swift can't make it. Neither can the Three Toms, Boston Mayor Tom Menino, Senate President Tom Birmingham, and House Speaker Tom Finneran. Boston School Superintendent Tom Payzant will be out of town. So will US Senator Ted Kennedy. US Senator John Kerry and Congressman Michael Capuano can't come, but each might send an aide.

Massachusetts Education Commissioner David Driscoll has ignored the invitation to hear directly from students about MCAS, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test that all public high school students must pass to earn a diploma. So have Board of Education Chairman James Peyser and the eight board members who set education policy in the state, all the members of the Boston School Committee, and every member of the Boston City Council.

One of the highlights of the all-day program of music, theater, dance, and discussion was to have been a dialogue between students and policy makers ''about fairness and equality in education.'' Lesson learned about the weight a youthful voice is given in educational matters in Massachusetts.

''I guess I was naive,'' says Asia Grady, one of hundreds of teenagers who have spent months writing, designing, and organizing skits and raps and videos that address the student perspective on so-called education reform. ''I don't want to say that they don't care, but you have to wonder if they are using education for their own political agendas if they can't take a few hours to hear what we have to say,'' she says. ''They might be enlightened.''

If only their schedules permitted, policymakers could watch a dramatic scene in which Grady plays a schoolteacher in an overcrowded urban classroom. No method acting here; she just tapped into her own experience. ''I tell the students it's time for review for the test and they call out their objections: How come private school students don't have to take the MCAS? Why should my sister be punished for her learning disabilities? Why shouldn't we drop out when we are being set up to fail?''

Grady is grateful she graduated from Lynn English High School in 1999 before the standardized test requirement was imposed. ''I wasn't a very good student,'' says Grady, now 19 and an honors student at Bunker Hill Community College.

Demetrius Jackson, a senior at Charlestown High, is working on a rap about the differences he noticed in the resources available to him at his current school and at Lynnfield High School, where he was part of the Metco program for a time. ''I've had the best and worst of both worlds,'' says Jackson, 19. ''I'd like to hear why Lynnfield has an abundance of books and at Charlestown we have to share books. How come I had art classes and computer design classes out there and I have none of that at Charlestown? All we ask is that the people who make the policy come and meet us, the people affected by the policies.''

Thomas Holder, a sophomore at South Boston High School, does not think the policy makers are too busy to come. He thinks they ''are too afraid to face us because we will ask tough questions and demand action.''

It's not an idle boast. At the first peace conference in 1993, the young people persuaded five leaders of rival gangs to sign a truce that led to reduced tension and violence in Boston's neighborhoods.

They got gangbangers to put down their guns, but they can't get the politicians through the door. Go figure.

*******Special Thanks for archiving this goes to, Dale R. Reed from the SepSchool list for discussing issues surrounding the removal of Government from the education equation.
This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on 4/25/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.