Not all of Vanessa's dreams have come true. Her greatest passion was to go to state this year in cross-country.
Margaret Downing
Vanessa Perez discovered that science and math had
more appeal than getting in trouble.
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"I didn't make it. I had a 13 flat in the two-mile at the regionals" -- not fast enough to make state from a 5A school. Still, she takes great pleasure that her team "beat every team in Houston, Westside, Bellaire -- you know, all these schools that we get put under."
Her older brother Dennis is a sophomore at the University of Houston majoring in chemical engineering. Her younger sister Andrea, 14, will enter Austin in the fall and also wants to be a chemical engineer.
Vanessa considers herself a role model for Andrea, who has pledged to do even better than her older sister in high school. Vanessa brings up the stereotype that Hispanic females get pregnant and drop out of school. Making sure that doesn't happen to her is part of her reasoning in staying close to home and picking UH for college, she says. "I don't want to go to UT and party, A&M and party. I don't want to put myself in the position to get distracted."
Family ties were important in her decision as well. Many of her cousins have babies. She didn't want to come back in four years to find them all grown up.
The other reason is the scholarship she is getting through UH. Because she's in SABE, she's automatically admitted to the Urban Experience program, which gives her $2,500 a year and free tutoring.
Of the middle schoolers she used to hang with, Vanessa is the only one to graduate. Two had babies and another is pregnant. One ended up dancing at Legs, which she said she didn't like, but it paid well. The dancer, who says she really wants to be an X-ray technician, tried several charter schools, but found that they focused on the smartest kids, the honors-classes kids who would bring them acclaim, Vanessa says. The average kids were just forgotten, she says.
That's true in regular public school as well, with few exceptions, according to Vanessa. Natalie Martinez, team leader and English teacher at Austin, is one of those exceptions, she says: a teacher who puts as much effort into helping her students in regular classes as those in advanced courses.
Her current boyfriend was in regular classes. "He said, 'Man, we were watching movies all the time.' " He graduated and is now a student at Houston Community College.
"A lot of girls drop out because of their boyfriends. They had a baby. They think they're going to get married and, 'Oh, he's going to take care of them.' A lot drop out because they're scared to be successful," Vanessa says. "Some say, 'I'm not going to college, so why finish high school? I'd rather go to work.'
"A lot of people don't know about scholarships and that there are people willing to pay their way," Vanessa says. And a lot of people lack self-esteem, she says.
She understands why schools focus on their most successful kids, "because they're the ones who are really going to boost your school up." The rest, she says, fall into the "whatever" category.
Listening to Vanessa so calmly handicapping the prospects of kids at a school she clearly loves -- the "regulars" versus the honors group -- says more about the way things work than any official policy statements.
Did Vanessa Perez prosper because she's so smart and determined, or because some dedicated teachers wouldn't let go? Obviously, yes to both.
And what does that say about the children left behind? The ones who weren't quite clever enough? The ones who didn't have enough self-starter to them? The ones who never got the best teachers, who never got that bit of extra help? The ones who didn't get that kind word at the most necessary moment?
You know those kids. We all do. They're the ones who'll be cleaning up after us when we finish eating in a restaurant tonight. If Vanessa Perez won't forget them, then neither should we. Even in times of celebration.
