For the second year in a row, all the seniors at the all-male Urban Prep charter school in Chicago have been accepted?by a four-year college or university.?And to its credit, the school isn't just focused on getting its students accepted; it wants to ensure that every one of them earns a bachelor's degree. The Chicago Tribune reports that, to that end, the school's founder, Tim King, ?and his staff have helped secure money for plane tickets, driven students to college campuses, held workshops for alumni in the summer and winter, and checked up on them.? Clearly the Urban Prep's employees and the young men who are about to?finish up?there?put in a lot of work to achieve this impressive 100-percent-acceptance result. But as usual, I'm skeptical: I wonder, for instance, if all the seniors are actually prepared to succeed in college (King told the Tribune that this year's graduating class had an average ACT score of 17.5, which ain't great); to what sort of four-year colleges these young men were accepted; and whether the school's college-for-all push is necessarily in the best interests of its students. But no matter: for now, at least, congratulations are in order.
?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow