Jesus Vargas, model TxTr
Rising high-school senior Jesus Vargas was part of a winning web design team for his website engaging youth in politics. Here, Jesus describes his project and the ways that becoming involved in the nonprofit have changed his life for the better.
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By Anne Artley
Three years ago, former technology consultant Oscar Menjivar, 35, was working for the LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School district) to integrate technology into classrooms when he noticed an upsetting trend.
It began when he visited an eighth grade classroom and saw that a teacher had posted grades for a recent paper. Out of 16 papers, all but two had received an “A” or a “B”. Menjivar said the two “C” papers belonged to male students.
“I went to the detention rooms, and 90-95 percent of the kids there were young men,” Menjivar said.
Disturbed by this new discovery, Menjivar researched dropout and incarceration rates. Sure enough, he found statistics to validate his observations: male students were falling behind.
According to the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives, boys receive 70 percent of “Ds” and “Fs”. Sixty percent of high school dropouts are males.
In response, Menjivar founded URBAN TxT, a nonprofit organization to help male teens from South L.A. develop leadership and technology skills. He employed a team of five to staff a 15-week summer academy where the boys learn computer programming and web development. Students are divided into teams that compete against each other to create the best website by the end of the summer. To put their leadership skills to work, the boys pitch their projects to investors, who give them feedback. The winning team receives $500 to launch their creation, and the top three winning teams take a trip to visit Google headquarters, Facebook and Stanford University.
Besides a $10,000 donation from Edison electric company, the startup funds came largely out of Menjivar’s pocket, as he put $35,000 toward his business. Admission is free, but Menjivar says that when his students succeed in a technological profession, they should expect a phone call from him soliciting a donation for the next generation of “TxTers.”
Last year’s winning team developed a website that encourages young people to become more politically active.
Jesus V. 17, a rising senior at the Thirty-Second Street /USC Magnet School, said that the skills he learned at URBAN TxT gave him the confidence to run for, and win, the position of senior class president.
The URBAN TxTers are introduced to a creed that encourages their personal and academic development. Menjivar drew from various sources to create his own philosophy. His muses include Dale Carnegie, the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, and Sun Tzu, creator of the ancient Chinese military text, The Art of War. The guiding principles include affirmations such as, “I believe nothing is hard just a lot of work,” and “I believe in the habit of doing more than asked for.”
The URBAN TxT program is not only limited to the summer. TxT alumni meet on Saturdays at USC for guest speakers and workshops. At the last one, the boys worked on developing their own iPhone apps.
According to Menjivar, none of the summer academy participants have dropped out of the program, and all of the alumni have gone on to four-year institutions. He also said that 75 percent of the graduates became engineering majors.
And the program, now in its third year, continues to grow as more URBAN TxT alumni are telling their friends about the summer academy.
Menjivar said he received over 120 applications for 30 positions this year. He reaches out to potential applicants through partner organizations such as the Watts Boys & Girls Club. Though he is considering adding girls to the program, Menjivar said he wants to focus on closing the male achievement gap, and pushing the boys from South L.A. to a place where they can compete against students from outside the state.
“When I was doing consulting, I was invited to speak in a middle-school at Watts. I had 60 kids in front of me and when I asked who knew what web development was, only five of them raised their hands,” Menjivar said.
“It made me sad because I used to be one of those kids, from the poorest neighborhoods. I come back 15 years later and the same kids are still struggling. If something is not done about this, they won’t be able to compete globally or locally."
The site: