Mr. Sherman’s Commencement Speech – 2013
Graduates of 2013, parents, families, teachers, and staff of East-West, it gives me great pleasure
as your principal to address you today. Graduates, before I begin, I ask that you turn to face your
parents and thank them for their support.
Now I ask that you make eye contact with your teachers on stage and thank them for teaching
you.
These two, your parents and your teachers are selfless adults. They think not first of themselves,
but first of you. They have dedicated their lives to supporting you. I’d like to recognize my
teachers, guidance counselors, paraprofessionals, schools aides, secretaries, coaches, community
assistants and assistant principals, for their dedication by sharing an excerpt from the “I’ve Been
to the Mountaintop” speech that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave on the day before his death.
Dr. King tells us of the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and how in the time of Jesus it was
known to be dangerous, with robbers ready to ambush, rob, and murder the traveler at every
bend. The road was called the Way of Blood.
Dr. King asks us to imagine a traveler traveling the Way of Blood who falls, and then to imagine
the Priest and the Levite observing the fallen traveler and asking,
Is the man on the ground faking? Is he acting as if he has been robbed and hurt in order to lure us
over so as to rob us?
And so the first question that the priest asked, the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I
stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"
However, Dr. King continues:
But then the Good Samaritan came by, and he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this
traveler, what will happen to him?"
Your parents and your teachers went down a similar road together. We were undeterred by the
dangers ahead.
I’d like to think that we, your parents and your teachers, are like the Good Samaritan. We knew
the dangers present on the road ahead, and did not ask selfishly, “how will teaching at East-West
affect my career? We asked instead, how can I best aid, best teach, my students?
Like Jesus on that road, we knew we had to do the right thing. High school is not quite the Way
of Blood, but the statistics describing the high school journey are dire:
According to US News and World Reports, nationwide, only 56% of African-American students
and only 54% of Latino students graduate high school.
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From the New York City Department of Education statistics, we knew that citywide, of the
students who entered grade 9, only 57% would graduate in four years.
For those who did not read at grade level, there was only a 10% chance of graduating.
For those reading at a fourth or fifth grade level, the chances of graduating high school were
under 4%.
Today at East-West School, I am proud to announce that we have again beaten the odds. Today,
95% of the students who entered East-West in grade nine are graduating on time, prepared for
college. This is a celebration.
Now that you have made it out of high school, let me discuss with you what you will have to do
next.
At East-West, you have learned. Among other subjects, you have studied economics, physics,
chemistry, biology, Earth Science, geometry, algebra, and English. You have studied Chinese,
Japanese, and Korean. Your reading, writing, math, and research skills have improved. It has all
been to prepare you for college and for life beyond.
In 2011, Georgetown University released a report entitled “The College Payoff”. The report
quantified the benefits of a college education over a person’s lifetime. Listen to this. Suppose
you want to become an accountant. Here is what you will make over your lifetime as an
accountant:
 If you are a high school dropout you will earn $973,000
 As a high school graduate, you will earn $1.5 million over your lifetime.
 A person with an Associate degree will earn $1.7 million
 A person with a Bachelor’s degree will earn $2.4 million
 If you have a Master’s degree, you will earn $3 million over your lifetime.
But suppose you don’t plan to become an accountant? Here’s the good news, the same pattern
generally holds within all occupations. The higher you go in your education, the more money
you will make over your lifetime. Those with Master’s degree will earn twice the income of high
school graduates.
Let me translate this. With that Master’s degree, you can eat out at a restaurant once a week.
When you are thirty, you can buy that nice house in the suburbs… with an extra bedroom for
mom and dad!
Please. Continue on to college. Finish and then earn your Master’s degree. You can do it in five
years.
Moreover, and as important, learning will bring you joy and the ability to make sound decisions
as you will be able to consider problems from perspectives other than your own.
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From here on in, it is up to you. There will be no more Mr. Sherman standing at Muster telling
you about the benefits of getting that 85+ average, or that “the number one most important thing
is safety”. Your teachers will not be reminding you to bring in homework or to study for the test.
If we taught you well, then you have internalized our message. You understand that you must
now earn at least a B+ average. You can do it. You are smart.
Simply put, this is not the end of your education but the beginning. What you do over the next
five years will affect your earning power as adults over your lifetime. College matters. It pays
off. Graduating college is your ticket to the good life in the American middle class.
As you graduate today, I ask you to remember that we at East-West have always had tremendous
confidence in you. You are smarter than you think you are. And in the words of Rachel’s
Challenge, dream big.
Now, off to college.
Thank you and congratulations.
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