"Prep for Prep"--A Brilliant Education Idea Realized

Have you heard of Prep for Prep? It's a brilliant idea realized.

Here's how it works: Every year for the past thirty years, approximately 150 low-income New York fifth- and seventh-grade superstars are plucked from their presumably limited public school environments and placed, after an extremely intensive 14-month preparation and on full scholarship, into the top independent schools in New York (Trinity, Collegiate, Brearley...) and the top boarding schools (Exeter, Choate, Phillips Academy...) around the country. All of the students go on to amazing colleges: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, you name it. Private fundraising fuels the whole operation.

Recently, I had the privilege to attend Prep for Prep's annual Lilac Ball fundraiser/graduation ceremony in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. All of the graduating seniors were there, dressed to the nines, as well as about 700 attendees who had gone in for the $1,000-a-plate ticket.

By any standard, the graduating Prep seniors impress.

During the cocktail hour, I chatted with an eighteen-year-old Prep graduate who was preparing to attend NYU, my alma mater, to study literature in the fall. He eagerly told me about how he'd just finished independently reading Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov--The Brothers K, as he called it-- and that his big summer project for himself was Ulysses. I told him that I barely staggered through that titanic book despite the support of a special college class titled "Reading James Joyce's Ulysses," and avidly recommended a glorified Cliff Notes text called The New Bloomsday Book for some guidance. He listened politely, but I could tell he wanted to tackle it all on his own. God bless him.

The presentation during dinner featured several student speakers, each charmingly sharing his or her poignant stories of going to lengths to seize the opportunities before them. One senior's mother ran on the stage to embrace her when she spoke of being accepted to Harvard after six years working until 2 a.m. almost every night. A video showed Prep graduates excelling in medicine and law, seeking to give back to their community and to mind the maxim, "To whom much is given, much is expected."

It was truly moving, and Prep for Prep's donors--specifically honoree and BlackRock CEO Lawrence Fink--deserve much praise for granting golden tickets to so many brilliant young minds. The evening made clear that the donors opened the doors of access, but the students more than earned their opportunities with hard work and achievement.

Yes, Prep for Prep deserves to be celebrated--although it is only able to accommodate 150 students per year, or .01% of all of the fifth- and seventh-graders eligible to apply. The other 99.99% of public school students remain in the public system, where the likelihood of receiving a perpetually challenging, stimulating, potential-realizing education is--to say the least--far from assured.

Our public school system has the resources--human and financial, teacher and student-- to harness more from gifted, driven youths. We need our schools to be able to say truthfully to students: "If you are willing to work your heart out and make education your priority, you will be richly rewarded with opportunities." That's the best of the American dream. Right now, the tacit message of so many schools is actually: "You have to go through the motions here because that's the way it's always been. School is good, and if you're not into it, shape up or ship out." Hardly inspiring. A recent report by the Fordham Institute confirms that many gifted public school students are languishing needlessly.

America needs a sea change in attitude--a groundswell of will-- to fight the social class opportunity gap. Maybe a glimpse at Prep for Prep's success can enliven us to demand more opportunities for more hardworking children--not just a fortunate, though eminently deserving, few.

You can donate to Prep for Prep here.

You can pick a public school classroom project to fund at DonorsChoose.org.

Dan Brown is a teacher in the Bronx and the author of the memoir, "The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle."

Follow Dan Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/danbrownteacher

Comments

[asuburbanprincess]

6. Reasonable work load for teachers. For the work load to be reasonable, each teacher should get two hours to plan each lesson they have to teach, and one hour each day to call parents or grade papers. Many teachers are working 70 -80 hour work weeks silently, planning their lessons at home, which is why over 30% of teachers leave within 5 years. Hall duty and other unskilled tasks can be offered as a job to local citizens for a fair wage.

Needless to say, this proposal costs money --TAXES -- (and here is where I want the CEOs to be willing to donate). Because if the tax and education system were fair, we wouldn't need the CEOs charity.

[asuburbanprincess]

So here's my suggestions for our future president (let's see who takes me up on it):

1. education should NOTt be funded by property taxes which insure that wealthier areas get better funded schools, but instead with state and federal taxes.
2. provide free day care and early education to all who want it, so children can come to school ready and able to read. (Research shows that Head Start works).
3. Restore a 40 hour work week (a 30 hour work week would be even better) at a living wage, so parents can get home from work at a reasonable time and have time to spend with their children. Parents should not have to work two or three jobs to feed their families or pay for college.
4. Create more local jobs, so people can live and work close to home and have more time with their families.
4. Parents should get 2 "school visit" days to use like sick days, so they can take the day off from work to visit their child's school.
4. Class sizes of 20 students or less. Students need individual attention. Teachers can't provide it with too many students in the room.
5. Qualified teachers in every classroom (which means higher pay to attract the best).
(to be continued in next comment box)

[asuburbanprincess]

After more than a decade teaching in Long Island, NY, one of the most segregated places in the country (Census 2000), I am increasingly convinced that our education system is designed to favor the privileged and continue the status quo. It's the .01% success stories like the one you write about that enable us to deny both the structural problems that exist and the unjust society that we live in.

[ccwpmarcus]

I am really impressed by the effort to help the underprivileged get a better education. I respect anybody that works to give educational opportunities to the people they wouldn't be readily available to.

I do have a criticisms though. Chances are that 0.01% would have done just fine on their own, and led successful lives. Chances are the top 1 or 5 or 10% would have had the drive to create their own good luck. So much effort is put into working with the high and low ends of the spectrum the middle seems to get left out a lot. Those make or break kids that would really benefit from the effort and money get left as a footnote. I'm not saying that high potential kids shouldn't be cultivated or the low end shouldn't be brought up to a functioning level, but couldn't a shifted focus do more to help a larger chunk of people?

The risks are greater when the children are more borderline, but I think that those are the sort of risks that need to be taken to really affect a change for the better for everybody. Obviously it's more complicated a problem than simply shifting focus, but that can play a part, as much as early childhood education and parental accountability could.

[Rule Of Law]

Better education is not on the Republican agenda. How much do you need to be aminimum wage, service industry tool? And besides, too much makes you a threat to the powers that be. When America stops taking it cues from the British Empire, circa 1880, on how the "lower classes" should be trained, then perhaps we will see the same sort of educational renaissance that occurred under FDR that led to the creation of a true middle class and the strongest nation the world had seen.