This year AVID students -- kids whose family backgrounds do not include a college experience -- invited me, their AP European History teacher, to go on the Northern California college tour, and I was honored. I had never visited Cal until a few years ago, with another…

Somewhere we have a penciled thank-you note from John W. Davis, who is about as famous as whichever team finished third in the National League pennant race in 1939. (It was the Dodgers, 12 1/2 games out.) Davis was the Democratic nominee for President in 1924, and he…