Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and funnyman George Lopez announced the implementation of Students Helping Our World (S.H.O.W.), an incentive program

that motivates students to improve academic achievement and attendance with celebrity appearances and concerts, to more than 1,000 students at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights Friday afternoon. 

S.H.O.W. is teaming together with the Partnership for Los Angeles, a collaboration between the Mayor and the Los Angeles Unified School District, to bring their program to four of Los Angeles’ highest poverty, lowest performing schools. Besides Roosevelt, S.H.O.W. will also be used to motivate students at Santee Education Complex, Mendez Learning Center and Jordan High School. 

“You grew up on Malabar St., Evergreen St., Soto St., but you can go anywhere and you can be anyone,” Villaraigosa told the auditorium of Roosevelt Rough Riders. “You can fly to the moon and to the stars, but you’ve got to get an education. You’ve got to show up.”

Lopez had the crowd of students chanting, “Rough Riders don’t quit; I don’t quit!” while the marching band played his theme song, “Low Rider” (later on, he even got a quick tutorial from a few of the band’s percussionists). Some students wore t-shirts with bold lettering that read, “I am the future,” while others waved around signs that read, “I plan to S.H.O.W. up!” 

“I was the first person in my family to graduate from high school,” Lopez said. “You can do better than me. You should do better than me. Do better than your own imagination; I never dreamed that I’d be as successful as I am because I couldn’t have even imagined it.”

Just as Villaraigosa did, Lopez connected a need for ambition to Roosevelt’s geography, and encouraged the students to build upon their roots.

“Promise me that you won’t quit,” he said. “Promise me that you will be your own people, and love yourself no matter what condition. Promise me that you will get your education, and then travel the world to see all the beautiful things that come from East L.A., and what those things mean to the world.”

The Partnership for Los Angeles was created in 2007 and now manages 22 schools of nearly 18,000 students. Ninety percent of those students are economically disadvantaged, and over 75 percent are below grade level in reading and math. 

S.H.O.W. was started by high school students in Chicago, who were inspired by an NPR story that told of a failing student who turned his grades around after his mom offered him tickets to a Lil Wayne concert as a reward. The students ultimately gained support from Chicago Public Schools, the City of Chicago, and the Kanye West Foundation. Along with West, other artists that have gotten involved include Common and Lupe Fiasco.

“Each student who achieves a 96 percent attendance rate for the school year, and does not receive below a C on their report card will get a concert ticket at the end of the year,” 16-year-old S.H.O.W. president Danny Belgrad told the assembly. In other words, students can miss no more than 7 days the entire school year. 

Jocelynne Romero, an 11th grade student in Roosevelt’s Academy of Medical and Health Sciences, said the assembly helped remind her how much she wants to go to UC Santa Barbara and eventually become a pediatrician. She thinks S.H.O.W. has the power to motivate her peers if only due to the allure of celebrity appearances.

“Since the economy is really bad and a lot of our families are affected by that, a lot of kids here have never even been to a concert,” she said.

But Belgrad, who is a junior at Harvard-Westlake School, wanted to make sure the students knew that there’s more to the program than just live music. 

“It’s not just about going to the concert, it is about students working with other students to motivate, support, and inspire other students to do their best and achieve their goals,” he said. “That starts with going to class.”

In addition to the year-end incentive, there will also be five other times at which students will be rewarded for meeting the attendance and grade targets, potentially with more celebrity appearances. Chivas USA goalkeeper Dan Kennedy also visited Roosevelt for the assembly, giving away tickets to some of the major league team’s upcoming games.

Barbara Martinez, last year’s president of the Compensatory Education Advisory Committee for Roosevelt’s Humanitas Arts School, says she supports the program’s goals but is far from optimistic.

“They’re not here everyday,” Martinez, who is also an alumna and parent, said. “The kids get excited to see the celebrities, but when they go back to class, it’s the same thing. They go back to frustrated teachers, and when teachers are frustrated, kids don’t learn. It’s just chaos here.”

One of the Partnership’s goals is to redesign schools into small, personalized learning environments so as to uplift the confidence of broken school cultures.  Roosevelt is broken up into seven interest-based schools, ranging from Law and Government to Communication and New Media to Environmental and Social Policy. Martinez raised concerns with the model, though, saying it divides up the efforts of parents who are trying to work with administrators to affect change. 

“[By splitting up the student body] they’re trying to privatize our schools,” she said. “That’s not what this place used to be about. We were one unified Roosevelt High School, and now the kids are being separated into schools they don’t necessarily want to be in.”

During the assembly, in the midst of making Spanish-infused jokes, handshakes and roaring applause, Lopez and Villaraigosa gave out gift certificates to outstanding students from each of the schools.

“They give them $50, but right now, that’s not much, and we’ve got some 150 homeless students here,” Martinez said. And while some students are thrilled at the chance to go to a top recording artist’s private concert, others might not be so easily swayed.

“The kids say to me, ‘They’re just trying to brainwash us or buy us off,’” Martinez said. “I pray that’s not the case.”