I spoke today at the Cesar
Chavez Public Charter School for Public Policy, which is a wonderful
school that I have visited before. It’s a crowded warren of rooms on an
upstairs floor of a former industrial building, where kids are intensely
involved in regular classes, public-service internships, and the study
of public policy. If we are going to have broad-based, creative, informed
leadership in the District of Columbia (and other troubled cities), then
experiments like Chavez must work. It seems quite clear that the school
is successful at presentone hundred percent of its graduates
attend college, and all seem inspired to work on social problems. There
are, however, the usual questions about whether the Chavez model is replicable,
or whether it depends on remarkably charismatic and dedicated leadership.
Today, I was sent this
article on the Internet commons by its author, a former president
of the American Library Association. It seems to be an important contribution.