FAMILY SUPPORT GIVES HER CONFIDENCE

Kelli Grady believes in herself and her ability to succeed. However, Grady says she gets her support from family and friends and not from Broad Ripple High School, where the 17-year-old will soon be a senior. Her mother was president of the Parent Teachers Association, and her parents stress the importance of education.

Too often, teachers only seem to care about students in advanced classes, Kelli said, and have low expectations for the rest. Other times, white students are favored over black students, she said.

Despite those obstacles, Grady strives to succeed in school. She cares about her schoolwork, and she quit an after-school job in order to stay focused on getting a better job later in life. After high school, Kelli plans on studying to become a dental hygienist.

"I think sometimes society looks at us and says IPS students are just numbers. Not that we don't matter, but it's like, 'Oh, well, IPS, they're the kids, you know, that can't get anywhere, they're the kids that'll be there in IPS for the rest of their lives.'

"I think a lot of students use that as a crutch: 'Well, they don't expect me to do it anyway, so why prove them wrong?'

"And then you get people who are just like, 'Well I'm just gonna do it, just to say I can do it and I got it done.' Those are the motivated people that move on with life and keep going.

"I think (some teachers) just treat the whole class as watered-down stupid. I have found myself acting out to one of my teachers. I have always had to reiterate this, 'I'm not stupid, I'm not slow, don't talk to me like I'm that way.' I hate for someone to talk down like I'm smaller than what I am. That's not the expectations I have of myself. I don't think of myself as the rest of society does. I have more respect for myself.

"I think in my high-school career, I've only experienced two teachers who really showed that they cared about the students and wanted really what was best for them.

"When I was sick, I missed a lot of days, and you don't pass if you miss a lot of days.

"One of my teachers called me on my cell phone and said that everything was OK and I shouldn't be scared about missing too much school. He said I should just get everything together. That showed me that he really cared when he told me what I'd missed.

"But you don't find that often in IPS, because I think most IPS teachers are there for the check, really."

BY KELLIE MOORE, 16 Y-PRESS

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HE DRESSES FOR SUCCESS IN SCHOOL, LIFE

David Bridgeforth Jr. sometimes gets caught in the hallways of Manual High School when the bell rings signaling the beginning of class, but he has never been the target of roaming teachers giving out detentions. He said that's because he usually wears a coat and tie.

"If there's a person that so-called looks like a gangsta with saggy pants, big clothes and gold in their mouth, and I'm walking down the hall right next to this other guy, I can promise you that he'll be written up, and I'll be going to class and they'll be overlooking it. Why? You know, 'cause I'm a student leader."

In fact, David is even more than that. An ordained minister, he also is a trainer, coach and professional speaker. He has his own Web site (www.davidbridgeforth.com) and motivational DVD and travels the country proclaiming to young people how they may succeed.

But David can still be the victim of stereotyping. Often, it doesn't matter whether he has a suit on or not. For example, if he gets on an elevator with an older woman -- black or white -- she's likely to grab her purse and keep it close to her.

The Manual senior thinks issues like stereotyping and school conditions contribute to the existing achievement gap in schools across the nation.

"As a black student who goes to a ghetto school, I think that society sees me as a number, a percentage. As a minority student, society expects that I won't go anywhere.

"I know teachers who stereotype. That's a big issue. I believe that there are a lot of teachers who treat people differently because of ethnicity.

"An article I saw in The Star talked about the population of public schools -- the students, low test scores and dropout rates. I think our confidence level goes down when we read these things. It's like saying that we're dumb and we're poor, and we begin to act that out.

"It's like how do you expect students to be smart, bright, you know, intelligent, all these things, when they're in the worst possible conditions? They say you're the product of your environment, and I am.

"The majority of the IPS high schools have construction going on in the school. I will be in AP English class, taking an exam, and I will hear buzzing sounds from the walls. Or I'll be in math class, where I'm trying to concentrate and then all of a sudden outside the window someone will bring down a cement wall, and I hear crashing noises or it feels like somebody's drilling on top of my head. I think it was Tupac, the rapper, who said: 'How do you expect me to be an angel when I'm in hell?'

"There was even banging while I was taking the GQE (Graduation Qualification Exam).

"And guess what we got to eat before we took our GQE? Candy bars. The school supplied candy bars before we took our GQE! Now I know at some other schools, they'd give some kind of a better breakfast, but they gave us candy bars and some sappy syrup juice drink.

"If you go to a doctor, or to anyone who knows anything about nutrition, they would tell you that sugar gives you a high for a half hour or 15 minutes, but then it gives you a low. And so if we are eating a candy bar before we do our testing, and we get a high the first 10, 15 minutes of our testing, and then we get a low, we'll be almost sleeping. You expect us to pass?

"But you're not a product of your surroundings all the time. And people's opinions of you should never become your reality, and I live by that.

"The difference between me and the student who dropped out yesterday is that inner desire -- that inner desire and that hunger for something greater, and me dreaming and seeing a better life for myself. If you can see it, you can achieve it."

BY RACHEL TROY, 16 Y-PRESS

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SHE WANTS TO CHANGE HISTORY OF FAILURE

Collene Turner, 16, just finished her sophomore year at Broad Ripple High School, and is determined not to follow in her father and siblings' footsteps; they did not graduate from high school. While spending free time practicing with the drill team, she has avoided an after-school job to allow adequate time for schoolwork.

While she's struggled with grades and attendance, she knows that she has potential and is smart. This summer, she enrolled in summer school to catch up and prepare for her junior year.

She plans to be the first in her family to go to college and would like to go to Indiana University to become a neonatal nurse.

"The achievement gap is more about poverty than anything, like where students are living and the situation they're in. I was in foster care -- in a therapeutic foster home. I was there (about) a year and a half. I visited my parents, but I lived in a foster home. It was a single home, and (my foster mother) adopted her niece, and then we had another foster child there.

"I think the gap between kids doing well and failing has a lot to do with home 'cause you can only do so much -- the teachers can only do so much. It's on the parents to push their child, I think. It's more on the parents than anything to make sure their kid is doing what they're supposed to be doing.

"My family is the only one that really influences me wanting to succeed. What I do reflects on (my foster mom), and when I do well, it shows that she's doing what she's supposed to be doing. She expects a lot from me.

"I would bring my work home and I'd show it to my foster mom and she'd ask if we had homework. She'd push us. I could tell when she was happy 'cause she'd applaud me for it, but when she was not happy with it, she'd sit down and she'd have like . . . an hour and a half, two-hour conversation of why I didn't do so well, what we needed to do to fix it, and whether I needed to study more.

"I really wanted to make her proud -- what I did reflected on her, and when I did well, it showed that she was doing what she was supposed to be doing as a foster mother. When I wasn't doing well, it made it look like she was not doing what she was supposed to be doing. I didn't want to make her look bad, so I worked harder to make her happy and to make her look better.

"Right now, I'm failing all my classes, but I tell my teachers and they're all working with me. I got all my back homework made up and stuff. They just said if I come to class for the rest of the year, then I'll be able to pass their classes.

"I didn't have very much confidence that I was gonna succeed or whatever, and that's when I stopped going to school, and like I'm trying to build my confidence back up now that I'm going to school. I think school helps build confidence in yourself.

"I want to graduate. I want to graduate in the top of my class. I want to succeed. I want to be on the top instead of just barely making it by. I don't want a life where I'm barely paying my bills, I'm barely taking care of what I need to take care of. I want to be able to not even have to really think about it, and education has a lot to do with that."

BY KELLIE MOORE, 16 Y-PRESS

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ASSUMPTION OF SINGLE MOTHERHOOD IS FAULTY

When Angelica Gilbert -- 18 with a 3.8 grade-point average, a job and a volunteer math tutor -- pulls out a picture of a little girl to show her friends and teachers, many assume it is her own child, not her niece. It is due to the fact that she is a black girl attending an urban school: Broad Ripple High School.

Society's low expectations, coupled with lack of family support have helped create an achievement gap between whites and blacks, and rich and poor students, she said. In short: Low expectations lead to poor results.

"It's like many people expect me to have kids. I'm like, 'No, my goal is to get my schooling.' I'm going to be the first person in my family to go to a traditional four-year college, so I have high expectations for myself.

"If you have someone to push you or support you, and tell you that you can do better, or just tell you, 'OK, good job,' then you will work harder in school. But if you don't, you won't really care.

"If I have a C on my report card, my parents say: 'You know you can do better. If I see that grade again, you'll be catching the bus to school. You're gonna cut back on the talking on the phone and going out and sit in this room a little more and look at this book.'

"My dad, he told me I can get a car for graduation if I can graduate with at least a 3.9. So I have to bring a B up to an A.

"The more the challenge, the more I want to do. My calculus class was the hardest class I've ever had. That's the only class I struggled in, but the teacher was there after school. You could go in there after school, and he gave us his cell-phone number so you could call him if you're at home and ask: 'Mr. Wilson, I don't get this. Can you turn to page 300 and help?'

"I went to a private school until 10th grade. My first year at Broad Ripple, all the black kids made fun of me a little. It was like, 'Why do you talk like that?'

"About the minority/majority achievement gap, there were three black kids in our whole calculus class and one Mexican out of 17, and the rest were white. I didn't feel out of place or whatever. The whole class, they're the funniest people, I swear.

"The graduation rate between black male students and white male students is a huge difference. I don't know what causes it. Raising the achievement standards might work because so many kids go to school and just do the minimal.

"People who come from a lower-income family are more money-oriented. They wouldn't mind leaving school and going straight to work. Some work to support their families. Some have their own families and have to work to support them."

BY MALLORY ST. CLAIRE, 15 Y-PRESS

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TIME AT 3 SCHOOLS WAS REVEALING

Albert Jones believes that lower expectations contribute to the achievement gap, which he discovered by attending three different high schools with varying expectations.

The 17-year-old is an example of a student who rose to the challenge when teachers set high standards.

He attended Broad Ripple High School last year, and Noblesville and North Central high schools before that over three years.

His parents are divorced and live in different school districts. He has lived with both his mom and dad. The curriculums of the school systems didn't coincide, causing Albert to miss critical lessons required for standardized tests. This fall, he will once again attend Noblesville High, where he will be a senior.

"In Noblesville, I had about four hours of school work each day when I got home. I worked on it from 5:30 to 9. But at IPS, it was like an hour maybe, if that. 'Cause, to be honest, I took an integrated chemistry-physics test, didn't study for it and got the highest grade in the class.

"For me, it's not that hard to do your homework at IPS. It's just work to keep you busy. It's simple stuff, like just copying down definitions out of a book.

"When I was living in Noblesville, I better not bring a C home. It was all B's and A's.

"People, especially in the IPS school district, don't have people pushing them, telling them that they can do it. I'm a prime example. I was raised in IPS schools when I was little and I almost failed third grade. A lot of teachers didn't think I'd make it, but now I got one more year of high school and I'm done.

"One Broad Ripple teacher held up my paper and said: 'This is how a junior should write.' And she talked down to the other students as if they couldn't do it. I was, like, telling them, 'You can do it just as well as I can.'

"In a magnet school or in honors classes, they actually teach you. If you're in a magnet school, then teachers figure you're all right, but anywhere else, they don't expect much.

"It goes back to elementary school and the different things that I needed and just wasn't taught. When I took the ISTEP the first time, I didn't pass 'cause I just didn't know the material. It took me like a year or so for the teachers at Noblesville to teach me things that I needed to know, and when I took ISTEP again, I passed it with flying colors easily.

"Especially in Broad Ripple, they give you stuff you don't need. My friend Tasha said when she took the graduate qualifying exam, she saw stuff there that she wasn't ever taught.

"And that goes back to the busywork, you know what I'm saying? Succeeding has to do with what you're taught."

BY RACHEL TROY, 16 Y-PRESS

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LATINOS STRUGGLE TO BEAT PREJUDICE

Language, for most, isn't a challenge, but in school, Hispanic students struggle with it every day. Besides contending with the language barrier between them and their peers and teachers, Latino students face discrimination, too.

Attending George Washington Community School, Lisa Marie Rodriguez, 16, and Jessica Davila, 17, experience these struggles. Jessica has been in Indianapolis for four years, her family having moved here from Mexico. She spoke with Y-Press, using a translator.

Both teens participate in an academic support program for Hispanic students at the school. Both say that the school provides lots of after-school homework help and neither has an after-school job.

Having just finished her junior year, Jessica's school beginnings were not without comments from her peers about her lack of English and queries about how she would succeed in courses with English speakers.

Both have heard peers voice negative expectations for their success, and both feel that often Hispanic students live up to these expectations.

"I think most people expect minority students to just give up. So I think people are saying, 'You're not good enough because you're a different race or because you don't speak good enough English. It really affects you and it makes you believe that, yes, I am not good enough or I'm not gonna succeed," said Lisa, who just finished her sophomore year. "It's just kind of sad though when (people) think, 'Oh, you're a different race and you can't do this.' It's kind of sad that they do that."

Both agree that Latino students are more academically challenged in school because of different language and cultural expectations.

"Hispanic students don't have as much support at home because their parents don't all speak English," said Lisa, who spent her childhood in California.

The girls have found that influence by their peers and the perceptions society has about their race affect them and sometimes result in prejudice.

"I have seen (prejudice), not in this school particularly, but the school I went to before. More of the Hispanic girls seem to have dropped out because of their lives and how it was hard on them because they were expected to do so much. They couldn't keep up with the homework," Lisa said.

Patience with Latino students, more mixed-race activities, and more work during class time are some examples of solutions the girls thought would help close the Latino-Caucasian achievement gap. Though their school may not utilize these incentives right now, Jessica and Lisa intend to overcome their struggles, complete their primary education and achieve their goals.

Lisa's plans include attaining a scholarship to college and getting involved in community social work.

"I have expectations because my parents want me to be better, and I keep that promise for them," said Jessica. "Where you are and what you're surrounded by is how you act and how you feel."

BY MALLORY ST. CLAIRE, 15 Y-PRESS

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