Original article posted at http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/MYSA082707_02O_sotocomment_245773a_html.html

For most San Antonio 5-year-olds, this week marks the beginning of kindergarten and the start of an academic career in the Texas public school system. It's a week of brilliant promise and not a few tears, of trepidation mixed with hopes and dreams.

But if our public schools don't change — dramatically so and quickly — then too many among this fresh-faced bunch of 5-year-olds will be left behind by a system that's well-equipped with rhetoric yet woefully short of results.

Urban, predominantly Latino schools like those found in San Antonio have fared especially poorly of late. According to the Texas Education Agency's misleadingly chipper statistics, only 76 percent of the San Antonio Independent School District Class of 2005 earned a high school diploma.

Last fall, the Harvard University Civil Rights Project — using Christopher B. Swanson's Cumulative Promotion Index, widely viewed as the most accurate measure of real-world graduation rates — reported that the number of SAISD students who completed a high school degree is actually closer to 52 percent.

By either account, we are all failing San Antonio's children and it will take an assiduous, sustained and, most of all, collective effort to address their educational needs as individuals and to address our civic and leadership needs as a society.

No one would begrudge a 5-year-old child the time, energy and financial resources needed to succeed in kindergarten. That's precisely the kind of investment that all of our kids, from five 5 to 15 and well beyond, require.

Teachers and administrators, of course, have much to contribute to our children's educational success, but at the beginning of this school year we'd like to suggest three ways you might get involved.

First, if you are part of a local business (from a mom-and-pop store to a multimillion-dollar enterprise) or a community organization (from a church to a neighborhood crime watch or a political interest group), take some time to explore how you might alter the culture and thinking of low-income neighborhoods, build community vision and engage youths and their families in reconstructing their perspectives regarding education and its value to their future success.

Simple incentives — a free meal for a month's perfect attendance or financial support for a summer enrichment program — can go a long way. The important thing is to get students, families and institutions involved in a community effort, to initiate dialogue and produce trust and momentum.

Second, encourage school administrators and teachers to build strong, positive relations with low-income and immigrant families to address their concerns and creativities. This will require the simultaneous cultivation of students' and parents' organizational abilities — leadership training for the entire family — and a coordinated array of community-based organizations collaborating with schools and families directly. Traditional barriers to educational success must be seen not as excuses, but as challenges to face head-on and opportunities to enrich lives.

Third, be prepared to hold leaders accountable in public forums and at the ballot box. At the same time, recognize that the path to increased educational access and improved educational outcomes is long and sometimes thorny; when leaders speak candidly and make tough decisions, offer your vocal support.

To the proud parents of the newest kindergarten class, we say congratulations and best wishes. Like you, we truly believe that your daughter or son was meant to change the world for the better, and we want you to beam with pride as he or she crosses the stage, high school diploma in hand, in 13 short years. We hope that your child ponders not whether to go to college, but where.

Together let's change the world one school district, one neighborhood, one school, one classroom — one kindergartener — at a time.