How the SEED School Is Changing Lives - Inner-City Boarding School Is Achieving Academic Breakthrough

Speaking of great TV, 60 Minutes last night did a wonderful segment on Washington DC's SEED charter school, one of the only charter boarding schools.  The very high cost ($35,000) (and other difficulties) of running a boarding school make it very difficult to replicate (there's one more in Baltimore, with another planned for Cincinnati), but the school is doing great things.  You can watch the full segment at: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/21/60minutes/main6506911.shtml.  Here's the beginning:

 

How the SEED School Is Changing Lives

Inner-City Boarding School Is Achieving Academic Breakthrough

 

(CBS)  A few miles from the White House in southeast Washington sit some of the worst public schools in America. The students there are mostly poor, mostly black, and their test scores are low. Only one in three finish high school; of those who do go on to college, just five percent graduate.

 

But right in the middle of this same area is also one of the most successful and innovative public schools in the country. Started in 1998, the school is called SEED. It's the nation's first urban public boarding school.

 

Ninety one percent of the students finish high school, and 95 percent go on to college. It's a charter school that's getting national attention. Admission is by lottery, open to any family in the district willing to take a chance.

 

This last spring, parents and children showed up for a lottery with a unique prize: a $35,000-per year education paid for by private and government money.

 

Only a third of the over 200 or so kids who applied heard their number called. With a child's future at stake, emotions ran high.