10:30 a.m. to noon, May 10, 2002

The Art of the Possible

Comments by Carl A. Cohn

Good morning distinguished graduates, faculty and guests.

When your Dean asked me to speak to you today, I jumped at the chance. There’s no more important audience than America’s aspiring teachers and school leaders. In fact, I am leaving my post as Superintendent of the Long Beach Unified School District this year to devote my full attention to teaching at the Rossier School and to building the next generation of urban educators. Thank you for allowing me to be part of such a memorable event, and for welcoming me so warmly to the Trojan family.

It seems like only yesterday, though it was really more than two decades ago, that I was standing in the same shoes as some of today’s graduates. I was accepting a doctorate in urban educational policy at a certain rival institution across town, which shall remain nameless.
We all have a past.

But there I was. About twenty years younger. Like you.
Well educated. Ready for the world. Determined to make a difference. I have since learned that it’s not so easy to make a difference. But it can be done.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, “Just another disillusioned hippie working for the establishment.” Not that I was a hippie, per se, but I admit to clinging to some of the high idealism that emerged in the 1960s. And I wouldn’t say that I’m disillusioned as I look out at this talented new crop of educators. But I am wiser than I was then. If anyone had told me during the 60s that decades later we would still have such dramatic achievement gaps and social inequities, I never would have believed it.

We really thought that we were going to change the world in a way that would stand the test of time. But it’s a whole lot harder than we thought. It’s taken longer than we thought.

And it’s a lot less glamorous than we thought. The real victories are the quiet ones that take place every day in the classroom. The real triumphs give kids of all colors a chance at the American dream.

And that’s where you come in. You are the ones who must keep the American dream alive.

So there I was receiving my doctorate at the dawn of the materialistic 1980s. But Robert Kennedy’s call to make a difference still echoed in my head. As you know, he was assassinated not far from here at the Ambassador Hotel. It was 1968, a watershed year for our country and for me personally. The same year we lost Martin Luther King. Those two assassinations left me hugely disillusioned. That year became a turning point for me. I decided to leave the seminary, where I was only a few weeks away from my vows of celibacy and a life in the priesthood. For some reason, I’ve always felt compelled to save people, whether as a priest or as an educator.

I began teaching high school history classes in Compton, hoping to make a difference on the urban scene. From that time forward, I got involved in looking at politics and the potential of what good politics can do to change lives. Even today, when I need inspiration, I pick up a book of speeches by Bobbie Kennedy. One of the editors of that book is Ed Guthman. He was Kennedy’s press secretary, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and now a senior lecturer here at the USC School of Journalism. The book, simply titled RFK, gives you a good feel for the man’s unique brand of plain talk. He spoke his conscience even when he knew his audience might not be receptive. This is extraordinary considering the world of politics today. He did not equivocate or base his ideas on public opinion polls. To me, his politics were about the art of the possible. That’s something that should resonate with any educator. I think most of us, and indeed most Americans, still believe in the art of the possible. Not the art of the convenient, or the politically correct, or the conservative or the liberal. The art of the possible.

Just a month before he was killed, here’s what RFK said about the urban crisis. It could have been written today:

“We must build new education systems, that genuinely reach and stimulate students. We need increased emphasis on educational research and development – which now represents less than one half of one percent of all our national education spending. This kind of assistance – which has won so many important breakthroughs in defense and space projects – can now begin to encourage new kinds of teaching methods, with new kinds of techniques, personnel, and equipment. We must create experimental elementary and secondary schools not run by traditional administrative methods – competitive schools – both as a means of encouraging innovation and as a yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of our schools.”

If you listen carefully to those words, you can tell he’s not worried about special interest groups. Instead, he’s talking about the possible. We need more of that, and we should never fear change and healthy competition.

My own attempts at practicing the art of the possible have, from time to time, landed me in some unusual circumstances. We didn’t mean to start a national trend in Long Beach when we became the first public school system in the U.S. to require school uniforms in grades
K-8. But that’s what happened. We adopted uniforms because we believed it was possible to create a safer learning environment, to eliminate gang attire and to reduce distractions.

Two years later, in 1996, President Bill Clinton visits our schools and tells us that America is in our debt because of our bold decision. And there I was, Carl Cohn -- who grew up in a poor area of Long Beach with a single mother on welfare. And now I’m shaking hands with the President of the United States and offering him advice about education issues.

Only in America.

Afterward, people were asking, “How does Carl pull that off – getting the president of the United States to come to Long Beach and talk about school uniforms?” My answer is that it’s like the movie, “Field of Dreams.” If you build it, they will come. Work together to attain what’s possible – do something significant and important, and build something positive. The rest will take care of itself.

Sometimes, if you literally build it, they will come.

In 1999 we opened a new K-8 school in North Long Beach, near Compton. We called it the Colin L. Powell Academy for Success. We built the school in a lightning-quick eight months. It was the fastest school construction the state had ever seen. And it won a national design award. Before I knew it, there I was, welcoming General Colin Powell to the school’s dedication ceremony. I will never forget meeting him. He is another one of those courageous leaders who practices the art of the possible. And as we’ve seen recently in the Middle East, he continues to do so, against all odds.

The reality, of course, is that efforts like school uniforms and instant classrooms are just the beginning. In Long Beach, better dress and a better learning environment have gone hand-in-hand with better behavior and ultimately better achievement. After adopting school uniforms, we required summer school for third graders who needed help in reading. We addressed the issue of social promotion. We piloted single gender classes and an extended school year. We worked with businesses and higher education on curriculum and teacher quality.

The reason we could do all this was that our Board of Education had courage and kept things simple. Most of us got into this line of work because we wanted to create better and brighter futures for kids. It’s that simple. I’ve felt so fortunate to work with people who’ve kept that main focus. If you get sidetracked, or go off in all directions, you lose sight of what’s possible. No matter what, the main thing must remain the main thing. If we stay grounded, if we keep our common sense, we can create brighter futures. That’s what parents really want from their public schools.

Long Beach, according to Census 2000, is the most diverse large city in the nation. Our children speak more than 46 different languages. Despite their many cultural differences, all of these families, all of these parents want the same thing: a better life for their children. Many of our parents have sacrificed it all, fleeing troubled homelands with little more than the clothes on their back, in search of a dream. You are now part of that dream. Some of our parents in Long Beach, on the first day of school, walk their children to the bus stop and kiss them goodbye, not knowing exactly where that bus is going. Their trust is so absolute, and it is a sacred trust. Never forget that we are part of that sacred trust.

Never allow anyone to diminish the importance of what you do. We need you. Parents need you. Kids need you. The hopes and dreams of public education will rise or fall depending on how well you do your jobs. I strongly urge you to use your positions not only to advocate for children, but to advocate for your profession.

Effective advocacy touches people’s hearts but also appeals to their sense of reason. There’s nothing wrong with a little enlightened self-interest. Our schools in Long Beach now have nearly 900 business partners, including some big-name firms that contribute generously. These are good people, but they also realize what’s at stake. Without a well-trained workforce, their operations will cease to exist. Similarly, we must convince people that today’s school dropouts are likely to become a huge drain on society and prime candidates for the criminal justice system. It used to be that kids who didn’t succeed in school could still find work in a factory or go into the military. Not any more. We must do more to prevent those dropouts, especially among the disproportionate share of black and Latino students who are still scoring low on reading and math tests. That failure is a social time bomb. If our state and our nation are going to succeed as a multicultural test of democracy, we have to educate the kids who fall behind. We have to get them caught up. In doing so, we are extending a lifeline so that people can climb out of poverty.

I speak from experience. I remember my mother, a single mom, struggling to provide for her kids. But someone convinced me there was hope, and since then I have never given up on the idea that we can improve the human condition. There will be days when you feel weary and lonely in your efforts. Just remember that we, your colleagues, are here to support you and help you keep that hope alive, because the day we give up on America’s schools is the day we give up on America. And I’m sure there are kids in your schools who are just like I was – who only need a little help and encouragement and a decent education.

I’ll leave you with a final 60s flashback. I’ll always remember a summer trip to New York in 1968 following the deaths of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy. I was struck by the profound and direct message of the New York Urban Coalition’s billboard campaign. It simply said,
“Give a Damn!” I knew then and there that creating a bright future for poor children was my calling.

There’s no secret formula for making the world a better place. You just have to give a damn.

Reach out to your students. Give them hope. Give them a chance. Change their lives. Don’t fear change. Take prudent risks.

Be courageous and tenacious. Stick together. Stay focused on what really matters. Keep it simple. Never give up. Practice the art of the possible.
Congratulations, graduates and to all of the people who helped you arrive at this moment. God bless you!