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LA Times: South L.A. student finds a different world at Cal
Link to full storyBY KURT STREETER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BETHANY MOLLENKOF
School had always been his safe harbor.
Growing up in one of South Los Angeles' bleakest, most violent neighborhoods, he learned about the world by watching "Jeopardy" and willed himself to become a straight-A student.
His teachers and his classmates at Jefferson High all rooted for the slight and hopeful African American teenager. He was named the prom king, the most likely to succeed, the senior class salutatorian. He was accepted to UC Berkeley, one of the nation's most renowned public universities.
A semester later, Kashawn Campbell sat inside a cramped room on a dorm floor that Cal reserves for black students. It was early January, and he stared nervously at his first college transcript.
There wasn't much good to see.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BETHANY MOLLENKOF
School had always been his safe harbor.
Growing up in one of South Los Angeles' bleakest, most violent neighborhoods, he learned about the world by watching "Jeopardy" and willed himself to become a straight-A student.
His teachers and his classmates at Jefferson High all rooted for the slight and hopeful African American teenager. He was named the prom king, the most likely to succeed, the senior class salutatorian. He was accepted to UC Berkeley, one of the nation's most renowned public universities.
A semester later, Kashawn Campbell sat inside a cramped room on a dorm floor that Cal reserves for black students. It was early January, and he stared nervously at his first college transcript.
There wasn't much good to see.
Very intriguing human-interest story about an African American student who came from a terrible neighborhood and troubled childhood in Los Angeles but did well in school, only to find himself in academic trouble at UC Berkeley. I don't have any particular point to make-- I just thought it was interesting. A few things stand out to me, however:
In one way, it seems this guy was trapped from the start. He got excellent grades in high school without really being challenged. I'm guessing that the school probably had low standards, almost out of necessity: as the article says, only 13% of its freshman class was competent in reading, and only 1% in math. It must be hard to get serious college-level standards in those circumstances.
Campbell's best friend, Spencer Simpson, offers an interesting counterpoint, however. He came from similar circumstances, but is doing very well at Berkeley.
In the end, though, it seems like Campbell was born into a situation where it would take a superhero to succeed. If he had gone to a high school, and middle school, and elementary school with other more serious students, he would have had more challenging classes and set his own standards higher, and arrived at Berkeley better prepared.
Unfortunately I don't see an easy fix, or a medium fix. People will blame the teachers, but what can you do when only 1% of the class is prepared? Sigh...