A School Movement Targeting Minorities That Works. But Progressives Don't Like It. | RealClearInvestigations

A School Movement Targeting Minorities That Works. But Progressives Don't Like It. | RealClearInvestigations
"Michael Landsbaum hit bottom after his father lost his job and couldn’t pay rent, leaving the teenager homeless in Dallas. 

He slept on friends’ couches for months until he was rescued by an unlikely source: his high school.
But Pathways in Technology Early College High School did much more than provide him with a place to stay at a counselor’s home. 

Its accelerated program, including college courses, gave Landsbaum the drive to get through the tough times and the hope for better days.
“My goal was to get my associate’s degree, and when I got that, things got a whole lot easier,” he says.
Landsbaum, 20, is finishing his bachelor’s in computer science at the University of North Texas – a turnaround that’s typical of the school, part of a growing movement better known by its acronym P-TECH.
Founded in 2011 by IBM and the Bloomberg administration in New York City, P-TECH has spread to 10 states with 127 schools as of last year, achieving remarkable results for the low-income, black and Latino students they serve. 

In Dallas, for example, 72% of students graduated with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree in about four years. 

...P-TECH's success offers a counterpoint to critical race theory, a controversial academic movement increasingly adopted in schools that casts “systemic racism” and white supremacy as pervasive problems that students can counteract through racial awareness. 

P-TECH is showing that underperforming students from poor communities can master a race-neutral mainstream STEM curriculum, especially when they see a brighter future, in the form of a well-paying job, within their grasp. 

...That’s about eight times the national average for on-time community college graduation by students of color...Read all!