To most Americans, the term ‘public school,’ especially when prefaced by the phrase ‘inner-city,’ conjures images of urban decay, illiteracy and unrelenting hopelessness – more Jonathan Kozol than Thomas Hughes. However, this has been quite inverted in the last few years in one of the regions of U.S. most affected by racial and class tensions: The Baltimore and Washington, D.C. areas.
Located in Maryland, these two cities were the sites of come of the most vicious racial riots in the 1960s, and in spite of many government attempts to integrate and aid the population, many people of all rqces still live in poverty at the Federal government’s very door. Both cities are also crime ridden, with some the highest murder rates per 100,000 in the nation (0.37 in Baltimore and 0.24 in Washington).
However, the non-profit organization SEED has seen a great deal of success by transforming the American idea of ‘public school’ into something much more British.
The SEED foundation first opened the doors of its Washington D.C. Campus in 1998, and those of its Baltimore campus 10 years later. Both schools serve several hundred pupils, with upwards of 400 students in D.C. School and over 200 in the Baltimore school.
The schools, which house pupils from Sunday night to Friday morning, have both gotten a great deal of attention recently, especially for their high graduation rates – 90% of its students, entering secondary education at 14, graduate from high school, well above the US average, which, according to some estimates, sees 40% of the secondary-level students who entered in a given year leaving before graduation.
The SEED Foundation was begun by two businessmen, Rajiv Vinnakota and Eric Adler, who retired from their former positions to begin the foundation. Although they have only opened two SEED schools so far, they hope to expand — the greater Cincinnati area seems to be a possible future target.
And perhaps more Americans will come to understand what a ‘public school’ can really be.
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