Why Schools Named for Cesar Chavez Are Overwhelmingly Failing to Meet California Academic Benchmarks

Once again, our nation honors the legacy of Cesar Chavez, co-founder of the United Farmworkers of America. March 31st is a state holiday in California and state, county, and local offices will be shuttered. Across the nation, tributes will be paid to the man who taught us to organize – a man who was willing to go to jail with the belief that si se puede: yes, we can!

Boulevards, parks and libraries have been named in his honor. While most schools remain open, students will participate in “service days,” undertaking projects honoring Chavez and the farmworkers who bring food to our tables under the harshest conditions.  

His iconic image is preserved in erected busts and statues; his portrait hangs in colleges and universities. I was once presented with a beautiful painting of him by California prison inmates serving time in a rehabilitation program (his message of non-violence inspired them to become better men). A postage stamp with his image is in circulation. Even a bowling alley in Amarillo, Texas bore his name. 

The U.S. Navy, where Chavez served, commissioned a ship in his name. President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously, and President Obama proclaimed the national headquarters of the UFW in La Paz as a national monument.

So many honors for a man with only an eighth-grade education, yet who inspired us that even the humblest have power and influence and the fortitude to overcome life’s greatest challenges and roadblocks.  I had the honor of joining a picket line with him decades ago in East LA, later joining tens of thousands of mourners who marched behind his coffin to his final resting place in California’s breadbasket to the world.

We continue to name schools in tribute to Cesar Chavez. This year, the California Department of Education reports that twenty-one California schools are named for Cesar Chavez. Yet, overwhelmingly, schools named for Cesar Chavez fail to meet the academic benchmarks established by the state for English and Math proficiency. Sadly, this is not the first year I have written a column on the state of Chavez-inspired and named schools in California to point out the hypocrisy of state officials and education bureaucrats in remaining oblivious to the shameful learning outcomes of students enrolled in these schools.  The pomp and circumstance of a “celebrity” school goes on each Cesar Chavez holiday, even while the fates of their own pupils remain ignored.

  It’s been:

• Seventy-one years since the most powerful Supreme Court decision on education: 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education’s sweeping end to racial segregation.

• Seventy-eight years since Mendez v. Westminster when in 1947, years before the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, Mexican Americans in Orange County, California won a class action lawsuit to dismantle the segregated school system and poor learning conditions that existed there.

• Forty-two years since release of the 1983 landmark, “A Nation at Risk,” from the National Commission on Excellence in Education. Intended as a wakeup call, the report declared that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.” 

California has failed dismally to realize the promissory note of education as the ticket to the American Dream for Latino children.  Each year I pen an annual update showcasing the continued disparities of educational opportunity and attainment for both African American (published on the King holiday) and Latino students (published on the Chavez holiday).  The hypocrisy is glaring. Each year, my annual columns reveal how little the needle has moved in lifting the educational outcomes for students enrolled in schools named for an American icon and hero.

Consider these California Department of Education facts:

• The numbers of Latino students enrolled in California’s public education system is 56% of the state’s 5,837,690 million students.
• Only 37% met or exceeded state adopted proficiency in English Language Arts (reading, writing, etc.); only 24% in Math.   

Clearly, Governor Newsom, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and the Democratic-controlled California Legislature (many of whom participate in ceremonies and parades and proclaim que Viva Chavez on this holiday) have failed California’s Latino students.  

Undoubtedly, every school should excel. But naming a school for a national hero should bear an even greater expectation that all who enter that school should excel.

For example, the Cesar Chavez Intermediate School in Sacramento—within the shadow of the State Capitol where education policy is debated and decided—only 31% of their students meet or exceed English Language Arts (reading, writing) standards proficiency—a drop of 1.2% from the prior year.  Only 20% met or exceeded Math proficiency standards-a precipitous drop of over 9% from the prior year. 

From north to south, schools named for Cesar Chavez post similar dismal learning outcomes: In Los Angeles County, the Lynwood Cesar Chavez Middle school reveals only 29% of students meet or exceed reading standards, while only 13% reach Math standards (a boost of only 0.16% from the prior year). 

The Chavez Elementary school in Coachella Valley Unified shows that only 23% of its students are proficient in reading; only 20% proficient in Math. Chavez Elementary school in Madera Unified shows that a mere 27% of its students are proficient in reading; only 21% proficient in Math. 

Los Angeles Unified School District reveals that at its Cesar Chavez Elementary school only 32% are Reading proficient; only 22% in Math. Meanwhile, its Latino Superintendent collects one of the largest salaries for a school leader while failing to substantively move the needle on closing chronic achievement gaps.

The Cesar Chavez school with the lowest achievement scores in California are at Compton’s Cesar Chavez Continuation High School. Only 6% of students met or exceeded reading proficiency—down by almost 5% from the previous year!  The most shocking number of all is that only 1.98% are Math proficient.  What “continuation” for life is even being offered these young students?

There is one standout: the Cesar Chavez Elementary school in Davis, which claimed this distinction last year.  It proclaims that 70% of its students meet or exceed proficiency in English; 70% in Math.  However, even this standout school dropped by several percentage points from the prior year. 

Quite frankly, schools named for Cesar Chavez have been ceremoniously named but left in silence to languish. The only outcry each year is this column that I write in the hope that someone will take note. Where is there any sense of urgency or leadership in turning around languishing schools named for a man we celebrate with a holiday? And make no mistake: these dismal learning outcomes cannot be blamed on COVID, prolonged school closures, and demands for more funding. A reading of my columns over the years clearly demonstrates that these are chronic failures: year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation. The silence from Governor Newsom, the state Legislature, and district officials to speak out and turn these learning conditions and outcomes around is deafening and shameful.

Children attending schools named for an American icon and hero have been left to languish, much like fruit left to rot in the fields. Any school named for Cesar Chavez needs to be worthy of bearing his name. 

Public education—which consumes almost 50% of the entire California state budget and has done for years—needs not only change, but a complete overhaul.  Tinkering with budget formulas is not sufficient. Bowing to the most powerful political interest in California—the California Teachers Association—can no longer be stomached. Handing out gratuitous pay raises and concessions to school employee workers while doing nothing to rescind or reform job contracts that perpetuate and cover up dismal conditions for kids will never overcome these institutionalized, severe educational shackles.  

But there is hope. Across the nation, parents are mobilizing for school choice to truly be the architects of our children’s educational futures.  Why not California?  Politically, Latinos shifted right in voting for Donld Trump for President, education and school choice growing as an important metric. His pledge and actions to advance school choice, charter schools, and abolish the U.S. Department of Education and return the responsibility to states to academically deliver for kids is a promising start on shining the light on Governor Newsom and not allowing him to slither away from any blame by pointing a finger at federal bureaucrats for the problem he has created, oversees, and maintains.

This is the time to break the chains of a cycle of education failure we have witnessed in California. It is promising that Latino representatives have challenged the hegemony of the Latino Legislative Caucus which prevented any Republican legislator from joining the Caucus and formed their own.  And on the very day California celebrates the Chavez holiday, the newly formed California Hispanic Legislative Caucus convenes in Pasadena to launch a new era of reform in the Golden State. I will join them (with copies of this column in hand) to honor the life and legacy of Cesar Chavez by highlighting the opportunity before us to shatter the silence of the shameful reality of educational failure in the very schools named for the man we celebrate. If not now, when?

Cesar Chavez, whom I had the honor to know, inspired us to act – to change our nation for the betterment of all. This year let’s stop the parades and banquets and all the lip service we have paid to Cesar Chavez to focus on the tragedy of chronic educational failure in the very schools bearing his name.  To honor Chavez, let’s have the courage to take on vested status quo interests who prioritize schools serving as a public works program rather than a public education system.  Claro que si, si se puede! 

For a complete listing of the schools (this is just 100 schools):

https://caaspp.edsource.org/