Jesus Mancha, 16, attends Brackenridge High School, just outside the King William historic district. The high school has not seen the benefits of nearby gentrification, he says. San Antonio Independent School District has invested in an early college program at Brackenridge, and there have been improvements in the academic options, he added, but outside people still perceive it as a troubled school.
“It’s considered a ‘ghetto’ school,’” Mancha said, and that view is hard to overcome. “It’s a community problem,” he explained, and it shows up in the schools.
For his contribution to the SAY Sí show Stories Seldom Told: Less than Equal, Mancha and his team created a life-size school bus – rather, the back end of the bus. It’s beat up, and the holes are patched with money. Lights flash in the window, illuminating statistics that show how many students of color end up in prison as opposed to college.
Mancha knows these statistics through personal experience, watching classmates encounter academic and social obstacles as they move through high school. In addition to enrolling in the early college program at Brackenridge, Mancha found a welcome outlet in the arts, a connection proven to increase graduation rates.
The National Endowment for the Arts conducted a study of minority and low-income students that showed an 18% difference in dropout rates for those with high (4%) versus low (22%) arts involvement. The students at SAY Sí fare even better – 100% of students engaged in the after school programming at the arts nonprofit graduate from high school.
SAY Sí is a nationally recognized arts organization that provides out-of-school time programming in a variety of art mediums. During the school year SAY Sí enrolls 150-200 students from across the city, with priority going to inner-city and low-income students.
Of those enrolled 55% of the youth are considered low-income, very low-income, or extremely low-income. About 25% come from San Antonio ISD, where SAY Sí is located. Additional districts represented include Alamo Heights, East Central, Edgewood, Harlandale, Judson, Medina Valley, North East, Northside, Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City, South San, and Southwest ISDs. Private and charter schools are represented, as well as homeschool students.
The Stories Seldom Told series is an annual project based on issues that students feel are not discussed enough, but matter to their lives. This year, the issue was inequity in education, something many of the students experience.
“People don’t often ask the kids” about their experience of inequality, SAY Sí Communications Manager Stephen Guzman said.
Before the students dive into these complex issues, their mentors at SAY Sí spend time educating themselves so that they can steer the students toward the issues from a balanced perspective. The goal is a mature and productive conversation.
“We want this to be an informed exhibition,” Guzman said.
State Rep. Diego Bernal (D-San Antonio), Trinity University Associate Professor of sociology and anthropology Christine Drennon, and St. Mary’s University law professor and MALDEF attorney Albert Kauffman spoke to the students on inequity in education. Kauffman represented the Edgewood School District in one of its lawsuits against the State of Texas over unequal school funding. Drennon, who is Trinity’s director of urban studies, has done extensive research on the roots of San Antonio’s inequity.
Students drew from this discussion, their own experiences, and research on issues of inequity in education. Some incorporated individual experiences, like the virtual reality simulation of a day in a special education classroom. Others used large data sets to visualize issues. One exhibit uses colored pencils scattered across a map to illustrate dropout rates for various ethnicities.
The exhibit opens Friday, July 7, at 6 p.m., with a second opening on July 8 at the same time. A show in SAY Sí’s black box theater starts at 7 p.m. both nights. In addition to the channeling the challenging subject matter, Guzman said the students were encouraged to think about immersive installation media.
The show is interactive. Upon entry, visitors will be assigned a zip code that will determine how they experience each installation. Visitors with a wealthy zip code will be given a flashlight to navigate a labyrinth constructed out of standardized test keys. Visitors from a poorer zip code will be given a glow stick for the same task. Entry and seating in the black box theater will also be designated by assigned zip codes.
Throughout the show, patrons will touch the world of Crissandre Academy, a dystopian educational institution based on student experiences with “zero tolerance” discipline policies in public schools and the “no excuses” academic culture of inner-city charter schools.
Both systems, says student artist Andrew Mair-Gonzalez, 17, aim for greater control over the student body with one goal: graduation. In the students’ vision of the future of education, rigor, punishment, and conformity have supplanted inquiry, innovation, and creativity.
Lockers of fictional Crissandre Academy students stand throughout the exhibit, and patrons are welcome to look through the journals and books inside.
Some of the journals’ content has been informed by conversations the students have had as they discussed the experiences of students in zero-tolerance schools or inner-city charters. One of the most challenging parts of the project, Guzman said, was the internal process by which students had to place themselves on a spectrum of privilege. As uncomfortable as it was for Mancha to place himself at a “ghetto school,” other students experienced discomfort in their relative privilege.
“How often do young people get to have these conversations in a safe space?” Guzman asked.
Without these kinds of connections, most students at Brackenridge don’t realize how many factors are working against them, Mancha said. His eyes were opened as he connected to students from around the city through SAY Sí. This is also when he realized how the reputation of a school like Brackenridge could hurt him and his peers. He feels motivated to overcome the negative perception and sees programs like the early college high school as a step toward culture change.
“It keeps students at a level where they know they need to exceed expectations,” Mancha said. Still, he knows that “where you went to high school” matters in San Antonio, and some are inclined to distrust those from what’s perceived as the wrong side of town.
The issues confronted by Stories Seldom Told: Less than Equal are as much about perception and experience as they are about the policies and operations that weigh on inner-city schools. For students attending those schools, there is little difference.
The three people you mention as “informing” the students from a “balanced perspective” are all pretty progressive/liberal in their outlooks. This can hardly be described as balanced. The result seems to be that the students’ art efforts are from the usual “inequality” and “victimhood” narrative that is so popular with left-leaning academics and politicians.
The story mentions that mentors at SAY Sí do their own research to provide a balanced perspective, not the panelists. However, it is worth noting that Republicans and Democrats agree that educational opportunities are unequal. What they disagree on are solutions to these problems.
As to the three panelists, all three are qualified to speak on inequity in education, regardless of their personal politics. Drennon’s research is based in historical home values and census data, Bernal’s perspective has been formed by a listening tour of all the schools in his district, which include some of the more privileged schools in the city as well as some of the most disadvantaged. I have heard both Drennon and Bernal speak on multiple occasions on the subject, and never would describe their narrative as one of victimhood. They are both well-versed in the data behind the inequality, which, again, is something that conservatives and liberals mostly agree. Kauffman’s experience in representing plaintiffs in their suit against the State means he is informed on the issues that have repeatedly ended up in the Texas Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, while ruling the funding system constitutional, also said that it is “sclerotic” “Byzantine” and “Daedalean” and jeopardizing the education of millions of children.
As for the students’ art efforts – these students represent a mix of income and educational opportunities. They were able to discuss these issues with peers who were living on opposite sides of the spectrum as far as educational opportunity. As I interacted with their exhibits, I saw everything from frustration and protest, to data visualization, to empathy, to imagination. Every student who takes ownership of their future (like the students at SAY Sí) has to grapple with those left behind, those who did not get the lifeline, who did not meet the right mentor at the right time, those who succumbed to the pressure to drop out of school and get a job to support their family. Oddly enough, none of them expressed any self-righteousness about the fact that they were at SAY Sí or working hard in school. They had tremendous empathy for their peers who were born into situations where obstacles are overwhelming. We would all do well to see this show and hear what they have to say.
I like what you have to say. I think it would behoove the SAY Si organizers to bring in some other view points. After all, this is supposed to be education, not indoctrination. Since I have not read or heard these people, I can only make the most general of judgements based on their vitas. I hope that the students’ art is not too political in nature. As Joseph Campbell said something to the effect that the purpose of art is to put the viewer in a state of aesthetic arrest. Anything else is what he called improper art, being either pornographic or didactic. I think that most politically motivated art is didactic, clever perhaps, but not moving.
Are you certain Brackenridge is not inside the King William boundaries? I thought they extended to Lone Star, which is south of the school.
Hi West, While the high school is within the King William neighborhood boundaries, it technically falls outside the historic district designated by the office of historic preservation. Lots of historic neighborhoods have these little quirks, and it’s definitely worth noting, because it has a lot to do with property value!