This week, the SEED school (Schools for Educational Evolution and Development) in Washington, D.C. - America's only urban charter boarding school (click here for more) - is celebrating the success stories of its first graduating class. Demographically, the school is typical for inner-city Washington: 90 percent of the students are poor, 98 percent are black, two percent Hispanic, and 88 percent from single- or no-parent households. The success of its students, however, is decidedly atypical. Not only are all its graduating students going on to four-year colleges (including such heavy-hitters as Princeton, Duke, and Georgetown), the school has also been able to achieve exceptional results in non-academic areas. For example, only 5 percent of SEED students were in fights last year, compared with 35.7 percent of DCPS students. Similarly, just 12 percent of SEED students reported trying drugs, compared with almost half of their public school counterparts. That doesn't silence the critics, though. Upon hearing of SEED's success, senior NEA policy analyst Susan Nogan complained that "considering how difficult it's been to get increased funding for the public schools, and taking into account that there is a limited pot of public money, as well as a limit seemingly to philanthropy . . . I would prefer to see an alternative found within the public school, instead of a small model like this which only helps a few." There's a certain kind of person - and organization - that can find the dark lining in every silver cloud. Yes, SEED is expensive. But what's a young life worth?
"The little class that could," by Danna Harman, Christian Science Monitor, June 15, 2004