David looked at his father. "Did you guys forget that I'm getting free tuition this year? Paying this rent is much cheaper than paying my tuition!"
His mother walked away, muttering under her breath in Korean about ingratitude and stupidity.
David's first challenge in Roxbury was figuring out the best way to get to school. Technically, there was a bus route that went directly from his home to the train station that abutted the university, but after a week of waiting for the unpredictable bus and being late to classes and meetings, he decided to walk three blocks over and take the bus that dropped off at Roxbury Station, from which he would get on a train for one stop to the university. The bus ran faster, but at times he found the train just as unpredictable. In desperation, he had his father bring his bike from home, but that was only something he could do when it wasn't too cold—and Boston winters could get very cold.
The one advantage to the long, unpredictable waits for public transportation was that he got to know some of his fellow travelers as they waited at stops and stations. David wasn't usually the one who started the conversations; often he was minding his own business and someone would ask the time, if he knew when the next train was coming or what he was reading in the paper. Almost invariably, one of two things would happen: the two would start talking about local politics and issues that were important to them or the person would start telling David about something terrible that had happened to him or her. At first, David wasn't sure if he could believe people, but when the twelfth person started telling him about lousy medical care, getting screwed over by the school system, the police refusing to respond to repeated calls about a crime, or how dangerous the traffic patterns were in Boston, David started to believe that he wasn't being punked.
He started to believe, in fact, that something was wrong.
David subscribed to the Globe and the Herald and pored over both like they were class assignments. Every few days, he checked to see what new hearing orders had been filed by the Council. When he could, he attended open City Council hearings, and even when he didn’t he got a sense for who called hearings and what they were about.
During SGC meetings, David frequently found himself staring out into the students who attended, and was dismayed to realize how many of them weren’t from Boston. He looked at the school statistics; only a slightly larger percentage of the student body at large was from Boston than the percentage from the student senate.
A few days later he pulled Erica Thorpe aside. She was an Education major and had been his assistant VP the previous year, and was now the VP of Academic Affairs. "Do you know what percentage of the student body comes from Boston?"
She pursed her lips. "You tell me."
"Less than ten percent. Do you know what it was ten years ago? Closer to fifteen."
"What about Massachusetts as a whole?"
He'd picked her as his AVP last year for a reason. "More like twenty. And what was it ten years ago? More like thirty-five."
"David, we know this, right? The university has gotten more expensive and more dependent on people who can pay the full ride."
"We're a major university in Boston," David said emphatically. "We have a special duty to make sure that people who live here aren't shut out of attending the school."
"Uh huh. And what are you going to do about the tuition?"
"Seriously?"
Erica shrugged. "No, but that's what anybody higher up the food chain is going to say to you."
"Well, then I'm going to say that Harvard makes sure that if your income is low enough, you don't have to worry about the tuition."
"And they're going to say that one, Harvard has a huge endowment, so they can do that—and they should probably be doing more—and two, that's a BS promise because everyone who's honest knows that there's a correlation between how much your parents make and how well you do in school." David opened his mouth, but Erica held up her hand. "And don't even start with me, because I am not saying that poor people are stupid. I am saying that if you don't have enough to eat anything but free school breakfast and lunch and you don't have warm clothing or stable shelter, that's going to have an effect on how well you do in school."
"But there are plenty of people—"
Erica cut him off. "Of course there are people who can do well in school in spite of being poor—but then you have to account for the kind of school they're in and whether there's bullying or other kinds of violence, because those things are going to affect your performance in school and sometimes whether you go to class or even school."
"Isn't there bullying in all kinds of schools? There certainly was in mine."
"Yes," Erica said patiently. "But what percentage of your class was also poor? I guarantee it wasn't as high as it is right now in Boston."
David crossed his arms. "So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying that if you want to see more Boston kids qualify to get in here—or Harvard or Boston College or Boston University—you have to start thinking about what their lives are like and why they aren't here in the first place. If you can fix that, finding a way for them to afford it won't be hard at all."
"Because the problem isn't just the schools," David said reluctantly.
Erica nodded her head forward. "And that means you can't just 'fix' the schools if you want to make any real changes."
"Can I find someone else who says it's simpler?"
She smirked. "Sure, but they're wrong."
After two weeks of reading and research, David made an appointment, even as he felt the bottom falling out of his stomach.
David sat in Lucy Bartolome Hendrickson's office one week after that. He had expected to meet with one of her assistants, but instead he was meeting one on one with the chair of the Bartolome Scholarship herself.
Lucy glanced dismissively at the proposal on her desk. "Already read it," she said brusquely. "Now justify it to me. Do not give me a song and dance about public or community relations, because that's what the university has a marketing team for, and if I understand correctly, you're majoring in political science, not business."
"It's a good investment, ma'am," David said immediately. "If we can add even twenty more students from Boston-proper into the student body in four years, we'll show that our education, economics and sociology departments know what they're talking about."
Lucy frowned. "So you'd like to try out some of our theories on a handful of high school freshmen and their families? Explain how that isn't human experimentation. On children."
"From what I've gleaned from my economics classes and what I've heard and read about our education classes, we've been surprisingly common sense. Let's prove that common sense is what's going to end poverty, not Theory of the Week."
Lucy scoffed. "Young man, do you know what ends poverty? Social Security. Welfare. Food Stamps. Public Housing. The Women, Infants and Children food program—"
"All things," David said as he nodded, "that are being threatened at the federal level."
"And things this university cannot replicate, even for twenty families."
"I know that," David said calmly. "But what I'm proposing is intensive skills enrichment."
"You're proposing buying every family a freezer and giving everyone a public transportation pass for the next four years!"
"I propose the freezer because it will allow people to take advantage of sale foods. I'm proposing cooking classes to go with that so they have the skills to cook and preserve nutritious foods. And I'm proposing the T-passes because travel is a disproportionately high expense for these families."
"Do you really think," Lucy asked disdainfully, "that these people don't know how to cook?"
"Of course they know how to cook," David replied. "But maybe they don't know all the tricks their parents and grandparents knew to stretch their ingredients. And that's even more important now than it was fifty years ago because the price of nutritious foods has gone up."
Lucy looked up. "Right, and I seem to recal
l that you also requested gift cards from Star Market every month for each family."
"That would be negotiated with Star—"
"So they can brand the kids when they get here? As Star Market Scholars?"
"No! So Star can take advantage of the public relations."
"And what about housing, Mr. Hwang? What if some of these people become homeless? Or lose their leases?"
"The university just bought a block of buildings in Roxbury—"
"For students who are going to pay fifty thousand dollars in tuition—and then market rate for those units on top of it."
David blinked. "I can see why you wouldn't care about community relations."
"If you had been here ten years ago, you would. The word 'blight' is too weak to describe what that block used to look like."
"There are hundreds of units. The university wouldn't even notice if twenty were used for low-income housing for four years."
"Four years? So these kids get in and then we throw their families out on the street?"
"No. We'd help them find other accommodations—or give them the option to stay."
"At market rate?"
"Or something lower."
Lucy stared at David, who in turn was trying very hard not to move. "If their children complete their course of study here—"
"Yes, of course."
"And qualify for the Kay or Bartolome Scholar's funds by the time they're in their third year."
"Are you going to change the requirements for either?"
"Of course not."
"Then I think that's fair."
"And you realize that there's no way the university can support twenty families over a period of nine years?"
"I think 'assist' is more—"
"I can sell ten," Lucy said. "I cannot sell twenty."
"Okay." He hadn't thought he'd even get five.
"Change your proposal and fix the numbers to reflect that. By tomorrow."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Another thing: you'd better be prepared to work hard, because this will not be easy and I will not tolerate failure."
David didn’t dare breathe. "Of course, Mrs. Hendrickson."
Lucy waved her hand. "No, David, you have no idea. You're a young man who was always been made to believe that he was smart and could work his way through any problem, even if it meant a lot of work. But these are not the same people."
"With all due respect—"
"I am not saying that they're inferior, I am saying that they are different. They will not have your study skills, but those can be taught. But they may have learning disabilities that haven't been uncovered yet. They may have a learning deficit due to the fact that they didn't get proper nutrition at some point, and even if they're able to catch up now they may not know how. And this is the most difficult thing: they may learn differently."
"Are you expecting me to fail?"
"No. I'm expecting you to come up with ways around those problems. And in a year—no, make that six months—I'm expecting you to thank me for reducing the numbers from twenty to ten."
"I'll just thank you now," David said.
"Good. Now go do it."
David got up. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Hendrickson."
"You're welcome. And David?"
"Yes?"
"Are you planning on running for City Council or is that just a rumor?"
David froze. He hadn't told anyone. "I'm…considering it, yes."
"So help me, if I see this listed as one of your accomplishments, I'll make sure we revoke your degree, do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Good." She looked away as she picked up her phone. "Wait until this works before you talk about it."
CHAPTER THREE
Two classes per quarter and the administration of the SGC should have left David with enough free time to consider graduate school. But two classes per quarter plus the SGC plus getting the program off the ground left David with no free time. His parents were irritated about his refusal let them visit him for dinner over the weekends, but when they paid a surprise visit to his home and found that he was instead eating a sandwich in the SGC offices for dinner, they were concerned.
"You're working too hard," his father admonished as soon as they'd placed their order at the Thai place near campus that they'd dragged him too.
"Really, Dad?" David asked drily. "I thought you told me politics was too easy."
His father frowned. "You seem to have found a way to prove me wrong. Congratulations. Now that you've made your point you can stop this and still save face, okay?"
"I'm committed. There's nothing I can drop."
"If you quit the SGC now, one of those VPs could take over."
"But they're idiots! Except for Erica, but she's taking a full class load and she's scheduled to go on co-op next quarter."
"You're right," his mother said, "let's not underestimate the brilliance it takes to decide whether you're going to serve strawberry or vanilla frozen yogurt in the student cafeteria."
"Very funny, mom, but it's a little more intricate than that. The student organizations' budget, for one thing, is part of my job. But primarily making sure that the administration doesn't change policies—and fees—when no one is looking."
"And no one else in the entire student senate can do that?" his mother asked.
"Of course they can," David said wearily, "but I said I would. And I kind of like it."
His father sighed. "Then can't this pipeline to the university you proposed wait until next year?"
"Dad, I'll be gone next year. If I don't get this off the ground right now, it's not going to happen. And don't ask me if I can trust someone else to do it, because no one else is going to do it the way I want them to."
"You have to have a life," his mother said.
"Did I imagine you two working late and on the weekends? After you had kids?"
"Did you thank us for that?" his father asked.
"Mom, Dad, I'm very grateful for—"
"Oh, shut up," his father said. "We're not expecting you to thank us, and you've done very well with what we've given you. The point is that you miss a lot working too hard."
"Then it's a good thing I like what I'm working on."
His mother patted his arm. "Just make sure you really do. Because it's not worth missing everything else if you don't."
~~~
David graduated that June and acquiesced to a party the Saturday after graduation. He slept half of Sunday and when he woke up Monday, he went to work. Lucy Bartolome was not easy to impress, but David had indeed impressed her. She wound up offering him a job with her foundation overseeing the pipeline, but David proposed instead that the university work with a community development organization in Dorchester.
"Why Dorchester?"
"Because that's where the majority of our students are coming from."
David had researched the community development organization for two months, going through every news clipping, press release and document he could find. He asked his bus stop friends if they knew anyone who had done any work with them and two were able to point him toward sources.
He’d secured an interview with the president, Ernie Draper, in April. "I'm surprised," Ernie said. "We don't usually get too many people with your credentials."
David smiled. "Really? Where do they usually go?"
"Graduate school," Ernie deadpanned.
David grimaced.
"So, young man," Ernie asked with a smile, "why do you want to work with us? It looks like your biggest passion is education, and there are better organizations to work with for that."
"Maybe, but a lot of those organizations seem more concerned with test scores, and I think that's missing the point."
Ernie raised an eyebrow. "How so?"
"I think those organizations—the best of them, at least—want to be able to look at an eighteen year old who's on his or her way to college and say, 'we helped make a productive adult happen.' There
's nothing wrong with that, but they're not just working with eighteen year olds. They want to start by working with three year olds. And I agree there's stuff that should happen when you're three if you want to go to college. But that stuff doesn't just happen in school, and it doesn't happen in a vacuum."
"By 'vacuum' you mean…?"
David took a deep breath. "You listen to some of these people, and you get the feeling that they want a child to be in school from seven in the morning until nine at night. I know there are parents who need childcare, but it's more than that. Some of the people who talk about schools see it as a way to control every aspect of a child's life without having to worry about the context that child comes with."
"And 'context' means family?"
"Yes. We're not helping children if we can't help their families, and while some teachers might need to get their acts together, we can't ask them to be parents."
Ernie sat back. "Do you know how many school children are on medication for behavioral problems?"
"I think it’s about five percent—but a lot of those kids are concentrated in the cities."
"Exactly. And even medicated…" His nostrils flared. "Do you know how many people come here looking for information on private schools and vouchers? Every one of those people has said that they want to get their child out of our public schools because of the behavioral problems. And then you talk to teachers in other systems, and they will tell you that there is almost nothing—nothing—about their curriculum that is different than Boston's. The difference is in the classroom management."
Exactly what Erica had said. "But you say that to anyone who isn't involved in the schools—"
"And they will start talking to you about 'accountability' and 'standards'." He sighed. "Don’t get me wrong. I grew up in Boston and I went to the public schools. I know what a bad teacher looks like, believe me, and I know that we still have some bad apples here. But every system has some bad teachers. The majority are good. There is only so much they can do when children are coming into their classes hungry, poor and shaken."
"I have no desire to tell these people how to do their jobs."
"So what do you want?"
"I want to help the families," David said earnestly. "I want to make sure their landlords are abiding by the law and they're not in danger while living in their own homes. I want to make sure they have access to public transportation routes. I want their kids to be able to cross the street without risking their lives. I want them to have access to places where they can buy healthy food, and I want them to be able to afford it. I want their kids to have safe places to hang out before they go home. And I want to help people get jobs."
The Golden Boy Returns (The New Pioneers Book 5) Page 2