Pierre and I spend a lot of time discussing how to make the most meaningful contribution to change the horrifying statistic that only 50% of 9th grade Hispanics will graduate from High School and 55% of African Americans. At the college level it gets even worse. In California, Hispanics are 35% of the general population, and African Americans are 7%. But at UC Davis, for example, only 13% of the student body is Hispanic and a mere 3% is African American.

If you feel bad, as we do, that these kids are 'lost' to the societies of which they should be full participants, you are accused of being a liberal. If you prefer, simply looking at the huge cost that this country will have to pay in the future to 'deal' with these kids who cannot become part of the economy of this country, you are probably a conservative. How do we, as liberals and conservatives, at least agree that we have a huge problem and come up with a solution? Sending these "underachievers/undereducated/underserved" to jail costs money. Having them on welfare, paying for their healthcare, costs money. We can debate the causes, the blame, all day long. But wouldn't it be better if we focused all that energy on finding a solution?

Today, I read that a recent article in The New York Times reported child psychologists have found by age 3, the average child of a middle-class professional has heard 500,000 words of encouragement and 80,000 words of discouragement. Among children in welfare families, the numbers were turned on their heads with 75,000 words of encouragement and 200,000 words of discouragement.

Maybe we could work on providing some encouragement to kids who hear 1/7 as much encouragement? Maybe we could put some encouragement in the lives of the parents of these kids so they can find the words within themselves for their children. That would be a start in my book.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive