Graduation Day

We drive through the Pasadena streets in a caravan in three cars. "Like a wedding," Grandma says. I grin. "Did I tell you that I feel like a bridesmaid?" "Are you sure we brought everything?" Grandma asks Grandpa. "I'm sure," Grandpa says. "I laid it all in the trunk." "Carefully?" Grandma asks. He nods. "Carefully." Grandma relaxes against the back of the seat. "Good." The minute we get to Monroe and the cars stop, a big bunch of girls and a couple of guys surround our car.

Growing numbers of college students are in school part time, and they face increasingly long odds of ever graduating, according to a report released Tuesday. The report, Time is the Enemy , by the nonprofit group Complete College America, includes data on full- and part-time students at public colleges and universities in 33 states, including California. It was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation and others. "There is a new generation of students who are poorer, more likely to be a minority, working and with families," said Stan Jones, the organization's president.

Re "Graduation Speakers Opting for Safe, Unoffensive Topics," May 29: The trend toward feel-good fluff and away from controversy in commencement addresses is disturbing but not surprising. The same trend can be seen on TV, in news magazines and in politics. Most Americans do not want to be bothered with the burdens of knowledge and responsibility; we would much rather enjoy our blissful ignorance and the indulgences of conspicuous consumption, leaving the problems of the world to supposed experts who periodically regale us with patriotic rhetoric or lull us to sleep with bland humor and all forms of pap. Universities are among the last bastions of true intellectual discourse; hopefully, the dumbing down begins and ends on graduation day and does not find its way into the classrooms.

As an education editor for The Times, I tend to see the worst of Los Angeles' public school system. Budget cuts, teacher layoffs, high dropout rates, low test scores. The list goes on. And on. As the mother of a Los Angeles Unified School District graduate, I saw the best the system has to offer this month. There in the football stadium at Cleveland High School in Reseda was a portrait of America as it is today.

"Graduation Day" is Nadia Lustman's first play and has many of the faults of most first plays, in a production at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre. There are awkward character transitions--transformations aren't explained, they just happen in before-and-after jump cuts. Characters are thrown in for titillation factor. The bimbo neighbor, Desiree (Karen Kim), exists only to prance around in suggestive clothing and grope and be groped by her husband (Dallas Munroe).

U.S. Military Academy cadets who came to West Point weeks before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were told at their graduation ceremony that they were a special group forged by historic events. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the class "one of the few since the early days of the Vietnam War who came to West Point in peacetime saw the nation transition to war and chose to stay." The class of 2005 is nicknamed the "Class of 9/11" and has 911 graduates.

Wearing a royal blue gown and a cap with a red, yellow and blue tassel, 17-year-old Brice Dickerson realized his last goal of high school Monday night. Brice, who has a form of brain cancer, became the first graduate of Fountain Valley High School's Class of 1994. With a standing ovation and thundering applause by the more than 300 students, friends, teachers and family members in attendance, Brice was awarded his diploma during the special early commencement ceremony.

By 11 a.m. Saturday, Santa Ana Mater Dei's Kaes Van't Hof had completed his final task as a high school student. All that remained was closure to his prep tennis career. Placed at the front of the line of graduating seniors, Van't Hof received his diploma in Irvine, then hustled to SeaCliff Tennis Club in Huntington Beach, where a noon Southern Section individual tournament semifinal match awaited.

A class-tardy slip led Kip Ashton from the halls of learning to the halls of justice Wednesday, and he emerged gladder but wiser. Ashton, 18, sat in Superior Court with his mother while 420 classmates at Villa Park High School practiced on the football field for a graduation ceremony that the school said he could not join. Ashton's attorney argued that a tardy slip should not prevent the class treasurer and track team sprinter from donning a cap and gown.

Actor James Franco has won critical raves for his performances in films such as the 2008 stoner comedy "Pineapple Express" and the Oscar-nominated drama "Milk." But this spring, when he agreed to deliver a commencement speech at UCLA, Franco received a thumbs-down from many members of the student body. "[We] don't feel he is as esteemed as a commencement speaker of UCLA's caliber should be," said an editorial in the Daily Bruin.

In a week of culminating glory for high school graduates and their parents, few have more bragging rights than the 300 or so seniors who walked the stage Thursday at Alain Leroy Locke Senior High School. The graduates of Locke are exceptional in the most literal sense. Of the 1,558 freshmen who started out almost four years ago, these were all who managed to reach Thursday's ceremony.

More than one-fourth of Carson High's graduates will miss commencement ceremonies because they missed too much school. About 170 of 665 eligible graduates won't don a cap and gown because they failed to show up for more than 60 hours of instruction this year or were late to class more than 15 times. A few students could win back their robes through appeals, but graduation is Thursday and documentation must be supplied.

A California appeals court will not hear arguments over the state's controversial high school exit exam until July 25, ending any chance that students who have failed the test will earn a diploma this school year. On Friday, justices for the 1st District Court of Appeal denied a last-ditch request for an earlier hearing sought by the lawyer fighting the testing requirement. The midsummer date will come long after high school graduation ceremonies. "This is a most welcome decision," state Supt.

Isaac Castillo watched uneasily as a pack of 15 boys streamed out of a Van Nuys McDonald's. They paraded across Balboa Boulevard, ignoring four lanes of traffic. Isaac and four of his friends headed toward their car in the Del Taco parking lot. The other boys closed in. One faced Isaac. You wanna fight? All year, Isaac, 17, had dodged confrontations with this group of teenagers. A rivalry over a girl had escalated into a bitter grudge.

Dozens of Japanese Americans who as teenagers were forced to relocate to internment camps during World War II and never received diplomas from their hometown high schools donned caps and gowns, corsages and leis for a belated graduation ceremony Sunday. Some of the seniors, ranging in age from the mid-70s to 83, wept as they shook hands with Los Angeles Community College District board member Warren Furutani and received retroactive honors in slim black leather folders.

U.S. Military Academy cadets who came to West Point weeks before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were told at their graduation ceremony that they were a special group forged by historic events. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the class "one of the few since the early days of the Vietnam War who came to West Point in peacetime saw the nation transition to war and chose to stay." The class of 2005 is nicknamed the "Class of 9/11" and has 911 graduates.

By 11 a.m. Saturday, Santa Ana Mater Dei's Kaes Van't Hof had completed his final task as a high school student. All that remained was closure to his prep tennis career. Placed at the front of the line of graduating seniors, Van't Hof received his diploma in Irvine, then hustled to SeaCliff Tennis Club in Huntington Beach, where a noon Southern Section individual tournament semifinal match awaited.