In just a few days our nation will, once again, honor the legacy of Cesar Chavez, co-founder of the United Farmworkers of America. March 31 is a state holiday in California and state offices will be shuttered on Monday.

Across the nation, we can see the tributes that have been paid to Chavez. Not only do some states celebrate an official holiday on his birthday, but boulevards, parks and libraries have been named in his honor. Even a bowling alley in Amarillo, Texas bears his name. Statues of him have been erected, and his portrait hangs in student centers.

File: Cesar Chavez gestures as he speaks during a news conference in Los Angeles, March 8, 1989.

ALAN GRETH, ASSOCIATED PRESS

I own a beautiful painting of him given to me by California prison inmates in a rehabilitation program (his message of non-violence inspired them to become better men). The U.S. Navy, where Chavez served, commissioned a ship in his name. President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously, and just last year, President Obama proclaimed the national headquarters of the UFW in La Paz as a national monument.

So many honors for a humble man with only an eighth-grade education. And today, numerous schools are named for him. In California alone, 42 schools bear his name, the majority of which serve a Latino student enrollment. However, too many schools named for Chavez are also among our chronically lowest performing schools. These struggling schools are sprinkled across the state. Twenty-eight are flagged by the California Department of Education as "Program Improvement" schools – a bureaucratic term for underperforming schools. Many have been on their "watch list" for over a decade.

Where is there any sense of urgency or leadership in turning around schools named for heroes, but embarrassingly simply left to languish?

Cesar Chavez High in Santa Ana has been on the "watch list" for six years. In a system that strives to have schools reach an Academic Performance Index of 800, Chavez High was tabbed at 588. Where are their elected board leaders? How do they justify celebrating the state holiday but refusing to transform the school itself? Instead, the school simply languishes on the list for yet another year.

All schools can succeed. On this upcoming holiday, we should feel inspired to see several Chavez schools truly excelling – and educating the same demographic cohort of students. This is important to emphasize so that the excuse that schools fail because of "those kids" who attend is debunked.

Those shameful explanations simply expose the soft bigotry of low expectations. Chavez High in the Central Valley’s Delano Joint Union High School District boasts an impressive API of 840. Many are children of farmworkers. Chavez Elementary in Long Beach Unified School District has a 799 API; Bakersfield’s Chavez Elementary beats the odds with an amazing 875. These clearly show that "si se puede" – it can be done – if the education leadership is there to ensure our students succeed.

Schools named for the same hero. Yet, some soar academically while others are left to fail. So, once again, as we celebrate another Chavez birthday and state holiday, we must call upon school superintendents and elected board leaders to become responsible transformational agents of education change and not let any school fail – particularly one named for a hero.

And if they don’t, then perhaps they can understand why parent empowerment laws, such as the Parent Trigger, are critical for parents choosing to get beyond their own superintendents and elected representatives and become the architects of their own children’s educational futures.

No one should have to wait a decade to see a school succeed.

Register opinion columnist Gloria Romero is an education reformer and former Democratic state senator from Los Angeles.