The Harlem Miracle

Brooks is summarizing educational research from an African-American economist, Roland Fryer, about the “no excuses” approach that has been shown to work in low-income areas.

“Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/opinion/08brooks.html?_r=1&em