Changing Lives : Counselor’s Crusading Helps Students Get to College

Walking into Jack Wright’s tiny counseling office at Benjamin Franklin High School in Los Angeles for the first time, a student is confronted by the future. Or at least a future made more likely just by crossing the threshold.

College banners hang from the ceiling. College drinking mugs line shelves. College posters adorn the walls. Bulletin boards are crowded with photos of Franklin alumni en route to prestigious universities with big scholarships. Pins on a large map of the United States mark the schools where this year’s seniors have been accepted.

And if a youngster still doesn’t get the point, there is, inescapably, Wright himself.

A father figure, cheerleader, nag, accountant and statistician rolled into one, Wright has crusaded for 21 years to send as many Franklin graduates as possible on to higher education. From the Ivy League to local community colleges, he is respected nationally as an indefatigable advocate for Franklin’s mainly low-income Latino and Asian students.

“I have a real simple philosophy. That is that every student I meet, every one I’m in contact with, should go to some type of college or vocational school. My responsibility is to to open up the doors so they do have a choice,” explained the lanky, intense Wright, 54, who was working unpaid at his office the other day even though school was closed for extended winter vacation.

With his help, about 86% of Franklin’s graduating seniors last year continued their schooling: 37% went to four-year colleges or universities, 46% to community colleges and 3% to trade schools. That total is well above the 70% districtwide average for Los Angeles Unified schools and close to the records of wealthier suburban districts.

More important, according to Wright, 257 Franklin graduates last spring were awarded about $4.3 million worth of scholarships and grants. “They know and I know they wouldn’t go to college if they didn’t get that money,” he said, noting that his students’ average family income is about $15,000 a year.

Gaby Hernandez, a Franklin senior awaiting answers from several top schools, said Wright “encourages us. He makes us look at ourselves in a better way.”

Recruiters from Ivy League universities, Stanford and UC regularly visit Franklin to find qualified minority applicants. They also come, they say, because they trust Wright’s recommendations of students whose potential may not be reflected in SAT scores.

“He stands out nationally if you are looking for someone in the country who has done counseling in a minority district,” said Philip Smith, dean of admissions at Williams College, the Massachusetts school declared by U.S. News & World Report last year to be the best liberal arts college in the nation. Four Franklin students are now at Williams.

Joseph Allen, dean of admissions at UC Santa Cruz, agreed. “He is one of those rare people who believe in what they are doing and don’t give up,” Allen said of Wright. “There are plenty of reasons to despair about public high schools and the world in general today. He never does.”

Wright’s supervisor affectionately refers to him as a “Clint Eastwood” character, a good-guy gunslinger on admissions issues. “For example, if UCLA is doing something I don’t agree with, I say, ‘Guys, I’m going to get Jack Wright to go after you,’ ” Chuck Espalin, the Los Angeles school district’s administrator of senior high school counseling, said.

A college admissions official who requested anonymity said Wright “can be abrasive and arrogant and all those things you see in people who are evangelistic about something.” But irritation with Wright, the official said, is overcome by his honesty and passion. Colleges have reversed rejections of students after a telephone call from Wright.

“Every college has to stand up before us and God and explain whether or not they are prepared to take and support students who have an abundance of non-traditional criteria,” Wright stated. “Colleges have to understand that they all can’t find the 4.0 nerd with the 1,200 SAT. There aren’t enough to go around anymore.”

A former president of the Western Assn. of College Admissions Counselors, Wright bristles at any notion that he pushes unqualified students: “The kind of students I’m sending away to those prestigious colleges will stand side by side with any preppie. To succeed in college today . . . you just have to have stamina and perseverance and be willing to work.”

Wright’s success is partly the result of his mastery of technocratic details--complicated financial aid forms, computerized applications, difficult deadlines. But real counseling skills are also important. For example, he refereed a squabble last spring between a bright young woman who had her heart set on an East Coast college and her parents, recent Asian immigrants, who were reluctant to have her leave home. After “gut-wrenching conversations,” the woman went on to the school, with a full scholarship.

When Wright talks about former students’ paths from poverty to careers in law, medicine and social work, his eyes well up with tears.

They return the affection. Gregory James Owen, an attorney, described Wright as “a third parent,” who helped push him to San Diego State and then Southwestern University School of Law when no one else in Owen’s family had finished high school. “I would not have achieved that if it hadn’t been for his encouragement,” Owen said.

Orphaned at age 10 and raised by an older brother, Wright was going to stay on the family farm in Kansas after high school. Instead, his football coach suggested he look at Ft. Hays Kansas State University, where Wright subsequently earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial arts and a master’s in counseling. College also meant avoiding detested cow-milking duties at home. After moving to Los Angeles in 1960, Wright taught drafting and wood shop and later shifted to counseling, at which he is now earning about $51,000 a year. He and his wife Connie, an elementary school teacher, have two grown children of their own headed toward teaching careers. The couple at various times have sheltered five Franklin students who were homeless or escaping abuse.

Wright said he is aware that his advice, like that of his coach, can change lives. But he said counselors must avoid the temptation of making the important final decisions for students.

“That can be dangerous,” he said jokingly, “because pretty soon that kid could become your boss.”