A Successful Public School With a Diverse Student Body ? I’ve Found One! (It’s a Charter)

I’m happy to point out a public education success story. The New York Times profiles this school that teaches disadvantaged students — and I don’t just mean eligible for reduced-price lunches. Ninety percent of the students are minorities, many of them refugees from civil wars and natural disasters. When they first enrolled, they knew no English.

For several years in a row, the school has made "adequate yearly progress" under No Child Left Behind. In fact, the academics are so good that upper-middle-class parents are choosing to send their kids there.

The word "choosing" might sound out of place when discussing a public education success story. But the International Community School is a charter school, one good enough to appeal to both white suburbanites and former goat herders from Mauritania:

“The fact that we don’t have anything in common is what we all have in common,” said Shell Ramirez, an American parent with two children at the school.

Too bad we can’t do this in Hazelwood.