I bumped into James Ragland, almost literally, in the entry space of the elegantColumbus public library. The library can be a meeting place of sorts, intentional or serendipitous, as was this near-collision. The library’s CEO, Patrick Losinski, had told me about the Cristo Rey Columbus High School when, as if on cue, the school’s development director Ragland rounded the corner. Ragland was at the library to work out some of the ways the school and library might cooperate, one of the many collaborations underway between the school and city institutions like the art museum and universities. The school had barely opened that early September week, welcoming back the inaugural class, now tenth graders, who had been lodged in temporary quarters last year while the building was under renovation, as well as the new ninth graders. Ragland invited me to visit the school, and I was there the next morning. The school’s new home, formerly the Ohio School for the Deaf, which had moved to a bigger campus out toward the suburbs, was right next door to the library. The building had some of that new-car smell. The old wooden floors were polished to a radiant gleam; the paint was fresh; the big windows were sparkling; the rows of student lockers were unscratched. A massive 20 million dollar renovation was still underway, now focusing on the upper-floor science labs and arts studios. The majority of its funding came from a creative combination of state and federal tax credits for historic building preservation and new job creation. Most of the rest came as a loan from the local Catholic diocese. The Cristo Rey Columbus High School is part of the now 28-school networkfounded in Chicago by Jesuit priest John P. Foley in 1995. The schools are strategically located in cities large enough to have a needy urban population, a supportive local Catholic diocese, and cooperative, deep-pocketed businesses. Columbus, which is an energetic, creative, and generous city, fit the bill perfectly. The mission of the schools, as James Ragland described it, is to break the cycle of poverty through education. Here’s what this big statement means in practical and human terms. Let’s start at the end. In 2014, 100 percent ofCristo Rey graduates network-wide were accepted to college. In recent graduating classes, 90 percent have enrolled in college, and the college graduation rate is nearly twice that rate of students from a similar economic background. Now let’s go to the beginning of the Cristo Rey Columbus High School story. Staff began recruiting the inaugural class with a vengeance. They fanned out to libraries, recreation centers, and churches. They set up booths at fairs and festivals. They visited schools all over town. When I asked a few tenth graders how they had arrived at Cristo Rey, one girl said that Cristo Rey reps had been visiting her charter school for two years, since she was in seventh grade. Another said he actually found five other schools he preferred, but his mom kept finding reasons to reject them until he finally gave into her choice, Cristo Rey. By the school’s second year, word had gotten around. The first entering class was 85 students; the second was 117. Who are the Cristo Rey students? They are financially needy; the average family annual income of Cristo Rey students networkwide is about $35,000. At Cristo Rey Columbus, 83 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, a common proxy for the poverty level. Sixty percent of the 188 students in Columbus this year are African American; 25 percent Latino; the rest a variety. They come from all faiths. Ragland and Principal Cathy Thomas strip away the sterility that comes with reporting statistics by telling their students’ stories: Of last year’s ninth graders, three had parents who died, two of them from violence. Some students are from two-parent intact families. Others have parents who are incarcerated. Some live with grandparents, others in foster homes. Others go in and out of homelessness. Some are in non-English speaking households. “We reflect America,” says James Ragland. And now the kicker: How does the Cristo Rey business model work? Here arethe words of founder John P. Foley, S.J. of the Cristo Rey schools, “If you can afford to come here, then you can’t come.” Here is the reality of the numbers: Start-up per-student costs for the Cristo Rey Columbus school are about $18,000 per year. Once the school reaches enrollment capacity, that will drop to about $12,000-13,000. Cristo Rey found a creative way to fund most of the tuition. First, in Columbus, $5000 per student per year is potentially available from Ohio’s school-choice voucher program; if a student’s home school is designated as a “failing school,” that money can “follow the student” to a school of choice. Right now, 59 percent of Cristo Rey Columbus students are voucher eligible, a number the school expects will rise once the troubled Columbus City School system completes its audit and more schools will likely be classified as “failing”. (For more on some of the troubles of Columbus Public Schools, read here and here) Now enters the second piece of the business model, the hallmark Cristo Rey Professional Work Study Program. Each student works five days per month (one day a week, and two days every fourth week) at a paid position in one of Columbus’s partner companies or institutions. Student earnings, about $6500 per year, are applied directly toward tuition. Unmet differences come from donations, fundraising, grants, etc. Families are asked to contribute as well, even if it is just a token amount. The school also expects “sweat equity” from families, as Ragland calls it, which means volunteer work of a variety of sorts. wp.me/p2POK5-Ap2
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 07:26:25 +0000
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