Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School That Beat the Odds

Jacobs had been an education-beat journalist for more than 15 years before she decided to quit and find out what was really going on with the charter school movement. In 2001, she started volunteering at Downtown College Prep (DCP), a first-year charter school with 100 ninth graders from predominantly poor, Mexican-American families in San Jose, Calif. The cofounders of the school had a clear mission: to take failing students and prepare them to attend college and do well. Students would have to break with gang culture and adopt DCP's mantra: ganas (motivation), orgullo (pride) and communidad (community). Unlike the formulaic, for-profit charter schools of businessmen like Chris Whittle (see the review of Crash Course in PW, Aug. 29), DCP is enthusiastically experimental. When something's not working (e.g., trying to teach algebra when kids don't know fractions), they try something else. As Jacobs tells the story of DCP's amazingly committed teachers and their (mostly) courageous students, even hardcore opponents of charter schools may soften. Some useful data (DCP's student stats, funding summaries) and a listing of resources for people thinking of starting a charter school round out this fascinating case study. (Dec.)