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American education is always in the midst of a crisis. The latest iteration finds our children slumped over their phones in oblivion while data-driven, testing-centric K-12 leadership and shortsighted school boards and state legislatures alienate educators as well as potential educators.
In a way, all of it is part of the larger crisis that is a lack of humanity baked into the system, manifested in countless ways – including the tragic story of Ellis Lariviere, 13, who died by suicide in 2021 after he was told he was no longer welcome at a prestigious New York private school he had attended since kindergarten.
His parents are now suing Saint Ann’s, and though I can offer no opinion on the legal merits of their suit, I am profoundly sympathetic to them. Their family’s ordeal hits very close to home for me. I am a second-generation private school reject – and this legacy nearly afflicted my son.
I was kicked out of a private school that had expelled my father
When I was 4 years old, the Ethical Culture School of New York City granted me a partial scholarship. It was a blessing for my parents, who were still struggling artists, traumatized by the profundity of my older brother’s developmental disability and the grim prospects for his future.
My father might have been a little wary, though, because he had himself, at the end of sixth grade, been kicked out of that very same school – which, back then, had not cost so much that a lower middle-class family needed a scholarship. My impression is that he had difficulty concentrating on his school work, perhaps because he was struggling with being gay in the 1930s.
I, for different reasons, also struggled to concentrate on school work. I was expelled at the end of eighth grade.
At the time of my expulsion, I took full responsibility for my failure. I convinced myself that I didn’t care anyway. Now, as an educator myself in Los Angeles, I have spent three decades fighting against administrators on behalf of students they’ve seen fit to kick out.
Perhaps it’s because I began my career at a school that was a last chance for students on the verge of dropping out and on the precipice of self-destruction. The principal seemed to sometimes understand this difficulty, but at other times he gave into the expediency of canceling the kids who needed us most. I was among the teachers who pushed back. What was our value if we couldn’t help our most troubled students? Unless a kid posed an immediate danger to others, they were our responsibility until graduation.
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What incited me the most was that the school’s leadership would use the language of family and community to welcome and nurture these troubled and traumatized young people, then they’d callously disown some of them. This is no small matter – the emotional fraud inflicted on children and their families. Inviting them to feel welcomed, valued and loved and then deliver the cold official letterhead betrayal.
Burned into my memory are the tragedies of students I fought for and whose rejection from our school was the beginning of a downward spiral – including one girl who just over a year later was found dead in the street. Aubreyanna Parks, 17, was a brilliant young woman who didn’t get along well with most peers or adults in the school. She challenged authority, wasn’t afraid to critique her teachers and administrators, and called us on our hypocrisies.
I do not believe that the actions of our former admins were the sole cause of her demise, but I do believe that if I had been successful in persuading them to let her remain at our school, she’d still be alive.
What we experienced at our son’s private school
I do not know in detail why Saint Ann’s school in New York rejected that 13-year-old, but I know why Ethical Culture rejected me: Its educators just weren’t willing to do the hard work of getting through to me.
Recently, I saw that same weakness over and over through my son’s experience at Crossroads School in Santa Monica. Beginning in the early grades, we and the parents of other kids, mostly boys, were told to hire tutors or enroll in special programs, or else find another school. All of us complied because we loved the school and the community we believed we were a part of. Then during middle school, some of those parents were told the school just wasn’t a good fit for their kids.
Our son made the cut. Though my wife and I were offended enough to consider moving him anyway, we knew that he felt comfortable there and resisted betraying his well-being for the sake of our contempt for these lazy educators. We still wonder whether we made the right choice. He made it to graduation, but not unscathed.
Mostly, in one form or another, it was the corruption of wealth – favoritism of uber-wealthy students whose families made substantial donations to Crossroads. I am told by some of my former New York classmates that obscene wealth has also infected Ethical Culture, which now costs more than $60,000 a year. Both schools once had been progressive places of learning, focused on self-discovery, a well-rounded and moral education, and celebrating individuality. They might still fancy themselves as such, but there is now much focus on getting their students into elite colleges.
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Educators don’t have to surrender, though. Every day, my colleagues and I who teach in the inner city take on the forces of poverty and violence and despair, and I am sure that many teachers working with children on the opposite side of the social spectrum are bravely trying to mitigate the poison of privilege and the evils of exclusivity. I wish them success.
I hope that all schools, including the one at which I teach, will start being honest with students and families from Day One about the limits of their institutional warmth and inclusiveness.
And maybe try a little harder to educate struggling students instead of giving up so easily.
Larry Strauss has been a high school English teacher in South Los Angeles since 1992. He is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors and the author of more than a dozen books, including “Students First and Other Lies: Straight Talk From a Veteran Teacher” and his new novel, “Light Man.” Follow him on Twitter: @LarryStrauss
