Nerad faces student critiques at Centro Hispano

At the March 17 meeting on the school district’s plan to eliminate the achievement gap, Superintendent Dan Nerad opened the discussion on a familiar note, laying out the statistics that underline Madison’s achievement gap problem and outlining strategies to bridge the gap.

Describing the situation as “a tale of two school districts,” Nerad said that recent data shows MMSD graduates 87 percent of its white students in four years, compared to 56 percent of its black students and 48 percent of its Hispanic students. An interpreter conveyed his message to the largely Spanish-speaking audience.

But unlike the nine public meetings before, Nerad was confronted by a different set of stakeholders—students. While attendees at earlier discussions have largely been parents and other adults, at Centro Hispano, students took the floor.

“When we look at the faces of the students who come to Centro Hispano, we see potential,” Mario Garcia Sierra, Centro Hispano’s program director, said in Spanish. “I have no doubt in my mind that these students can be doctors, lawyers, astronauts—anything they want to be. But right now they are being denied these dreams.

“The young peoples’ voices have not been central in this discussion,” Garcia Sierra added.  “And I think they should be.  At the end of the day, they are the experts of their own reality, and of course of their futures.  They own their futures.”

So, before splitting attendees into groups to discuss the strategies outlined in the plan, as has been the format for previous meetings, Garcia Sierra invited three students to the podium to speak.

Nadia Mora, a senior at La Follette High School, was first to address the audience.  

“In school we don’t really talk about problems of discrimination and race,” she said, “we talk around it.  It’s important that we talk about it in order to understand each other. It wasn’t until I came to Centro Hispano that I got the courage to speak up about issues that affect the community.”

Janeth Sanchez, a junior at La Follette, said that she’s concerned about her history books—none of them have helped her understand her culture or the contributions Latinos have made to society.

Centro Hispano has helped her find her identity and has inspired her to be a better person, she said.

Karina Harrejon, a junior at Madison West spoke of lack of opportunities and the subtleties of racism.

“It’s difficult to come home and show my parents As and Bs on my report card.  They’re proud of me, but in the back of my mind I know that I will never have the same opportunity to go to college as other students have,” she said.

“I hear white students who come to school and say that they just took the SATs,” she said, “and I wonder, ‘where do you take an SAT and how do you prepare for it?’”

“My teachers don’t ask me certain questions because they think I don’t know the answers,” she said.  “To me, that seems like racism.  I look around and think, ‘do I really belong here?’”

As the students took their seats, Nerad stood to respond.

“Thank you very much for having the courage to speak your ideas,” Nerad said . "It’s not easy to do that and you did a beautiful job.”

“These students said we don’t talk about race in our schools—and they’re right.  They said we don’t talk about culture in our schools, and they’re right about that too,” said Nerad. “This plan proposes strategies on how we can address and improve those problems.”

“What really saddened me was the question of if you belong here.  Let me just say that you do belong here,” he said to Harrejon.

“I want you all to know that I can’t change everything overnight,” said Nerad, “but together we can change and we can help provide each and every student within our district the same opportunity to succeed.”

For more information on the achievement gap meetings, visit the MMSD website.