From Yale to Cristo Rey- or vice versa

In Best and Brightest, But Not the Nicest, a law student shares her experiences and thoughts about students she's met at a few of the top colleges and universities in America and raises interesting questions about the "Darwinian nature" of the college selection process. Although impressed by many of her peers' accomplishments, she writes:

I'm saying that sometimes some of these students will denounce world hunger but be unfriendly to the homeless. They will debate environmental policy but never offer to take out the trash. They will believe vehemently in many causes but roll their eyes when reminded to be humble, to be generous and to "do what is right.

An interesting article that questions our society's definition of who succeeds - and how.

And I couldn't help but juxtapose that article with this interview with the author of More than a Dream, a young fellow two years out of college who wrote about Cristo Rey High School ,an innovative school focusing on Mexican immigrant students in Chicago run by Jesuits, whose odds of success were not high. The author, who was a volunteer teacher at the school, talks about how the Jesuits funded the school by sending the students to work - and succeeded in sending most of its students to college, usually the first ones in their family to do so. None of it, theoretically, should have worked, the interviewer pointed out. (Apparently he was never taught by a Jesuit.)

Now there are a network of 12 schools, all of which provide college prep education to families who otherwise would not be able to afford it due to the innovative workstudy program. The schools are considered a model for urban education.