Not So Fast!

That photo above is me, relaxing at Middlesex, a boarding school in Concord, Mass., in the 1970s. More about that in a moment.

Instead I want to first focus on something which caused an uproar on the Indianapolis Star online message boards in recent days. In fact, a sampling of the anonymous criticism:

“In the history of bad ideas, this one is right up there.”

“This is the stupidest educational reform idea ever conceived.”

“I do not comment very much but this has got to be the worst idea ever.”

This was the reaction to Andy Gammill’s story about a proposed African boarding school intended to serve inner-city students from Indianapolis… at taxpayer expense.

The pilot program put forth by faculty and staff members at Indiana University and Ghanaian officials is to enroll middle- and high-school students, struggling in the Indianapolis Public School system, into a boarding school outside of Accra, the capital of Ghana, where English is the primary language. The curriculum would use Indiana standards as well as teachers and would be monitored by state officials.

Private fundraising would pay for the construction of a campus while the state funds that already cover student costs would pay for the education. Parents would not have additional expense. The reason for selecting Ghana simply has to do with funding. A boarding school in the U.S. would require four times the funds of such an opportunity in Ghana, making it possible without exceeding the amount that is already allotted for public education.

The truth is that sending inner-city students to boarding schools in the U.S. is hardly a new concept. It has been going on for four decades. In fact, the notion of sending those same students to an African boarding school is not new either.

That brings me back to Middlesex School. Like Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Grammy Award winner Tracy Chapman and thousands of others, I was plucked out of the inner city as a young teen, given an opportunity to move hundreds of miles away to attend a boarding school.

For me, well, I blossomed. Sentenced to minimal expectations of those in charge of public education in Cleveland, I had no other option until A Better Chance gave me that opportunity. It wasn’t a bed of roses for me. Unprepared for the rigor, I struggled at first in a place worlds removed from my hometown. I became disconnected from my family and my community back in Ohio.

But my eyes were opened to possibilities unknown, ones that seemed totally unavailable to kids from my neighborhood. I had the chance to master sports I had never seen. I had conversations that I had never before had. I felt engaged and alive whereas before I was lost in a comprehensive urban setting. The freedom to thrive and simply be a kid again led me to Yale University and beyond.

This journey was so compelling to me that it became the driving force in my career — to bring excellent small schools to inner-city communities that desperately need them. It is why we hope to launch our flagship school in the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood of Indianapolis. That community does not have a high school, but it does host a 144-bed juvenile correction facility. No more needs to be said on that.

Back to Africa. I too was skeptical about students as young as middle school being sent thousands of miles away — that is until I saw The Boys of Baraka and the transformation such an experience had on the families that agreed to participate. Families cannot wait for bureaucratic snail’s pace change while their sons and daughters futures slip away. Even those who propose this idea realize there are many obstacles before this plan comes to fruition. I applaud the audacity of it, the audacity to not only hope, but to act.