C, as in Correcting the Flaw

At the Locke High School of South-Central Los Angeles athletic-awards dinner this past week the emphasis was on scholarship as well as sports. Los Angeles Board of Education President Rita Walters, who sponsored the city’s rule that students must maintain a C average in order to be eligible for extracurricular activities, presented the awards. Two elements especially pleased her. One was seeing the emphasis on achievement in the classroom as well as on the volleyball court or the football field. The other was hearing the story of one young man who lost his eligibility, worked on his grades and now plans to attend the University of Colorado.

Not everyone has met with as much success as Locke’s players and coaches. At any given time about one-fifth--sometimes fewer--of the high-school students who normally participate in extra-curricular activities are not eligible. Among students from Grades 4 to 12, somewhere between 10% and 13% of students who normally would go out for the band or an athletic team or some other activity are ineligible.

The Los Angeles rule is stricter than the state law that went into effect Jan. 1, 1987. Los Angeles says that students must maintain a C average, with no failing grade. The state law simply requires a C average. A recent report from the California Department of Education says that the state law has had “a mostly positive effect.” It adds, however, that slightly more than one-third of the state’s school districts aren’t providing enough tutorial help to students whose grades fall below the required C average.

As one school official said, “It is nice to have rules and regulations, but when you do not have the money for the staff to support the regulations, what good are the rules? We can easily identify the problem, but we can only bandage the wound.”

Unfortunately, when the California Board of Education discussed the report it made no specific recommendations about correcting the situation. To do so it would surely have had to recommend that the state pay teachers extra money to work after hours with students in academic difficulty. Politicians seem to think that proposing bigger budgets can be hazardous to their health. That may be so, but it happens to be good for young people. We’ll go with what’s good for the young people every time.