Last year the school produced a book of poems called I Am. I wish I knew why blacks were treated differently. The El Puente Academy codifies this impulse. We work on the self first, then self-esteem, then community, then world. So, by twelfth grade, many of these young people will be focused on learning about the world.
Many educators consider twelfth grade a little late to start expanding horizons.
An opposing group driving school reform is the Coalition of Essential Schools, led by MacArthur grant genius Debbie Meier and Brown University Education Professor Theodore Sizer. Rather than content-based reform, they focus on teaching and critical thinking. The high school they opened in 1985, Central Park East, became the beacon of the reform movement. You may unwittingly shut off a great talent that hasn't emerged yet. But it seems picayune to fault theme schools on theoretical grounds given their record so far.