Cesar Chavez school

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 present—one 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.