There is an inspiring article in today’s New York Times about the Ted Ginn Academy — a school started by a security guard / football coach. It is a story about an unlikely, non-traditional educator who built a school that is succeeding for students where others have failed. It is not unlike the stories being told about KIPP and Mastery Charter… a group of dedicated educators going above and beyond and saving every child.

And that’s where I have a problem.

They aren’t… and papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post are so excited for this narrative, that they are perpetuating the myth.

From the article:

Even as the city’s graduation rate has fallen to 54 percent, Ginn Academy, now in its third year, has grown to 300 students, and no one has dropped out. Of the 37 students in its first senior class, 32 have already passed Ohio’s mandatory graduation exam.

And later in the article:

Ginn Academy, which opened in September 2007 with 100 freshmen and 50 sophomores, now occupies a former middle school with more than 100,000 square feet of space. It has attracted top educators and visitors from outside the district who come to see the innovative school in action.

And I’m left with only one question:

What about the other thirteen kids?

Maybe some moved… maybe some decided that the Ginn Academy wasn’t for them… but did any of them struggle so much that they transferred back to the "traditional" schools they left? Were any of them encouraged to leave by administration who saw that the kids were not on board with the school? What are the stories of the other thirteen students? The article reads as if everyone is going to graduate from Ginn, but clearly, not every student made it through the school.

Lest people think I’m beating up on the school, I’m not. If they average a 76% on-time graduation rate in their first year in a district that averages 54%, that’s a huge victory. Your first year, you figure everything out, and inevitably, some students leave the school as you shake out what the school really is. To do as well as they’ve done is awesome and important and noteworthy — it just doesn’t sound as good to the New York Times.

[Full disclosure — SLA is on track to graduate 90% of the original students in our starting class from our school (and all the students who have transferred in) — and I’m amazed by those numbers and the incredible work our students and teachers have put in to get there… and yes, we chose our kids.]

But the bigger question is — why does the media insist on perpetuating this storyline? Let’s take the KIPP schools as an example… there is now enough evidence to suggest that KIPP schools have a high level of attrition… and while there doesn’t yet seem to be research to define exactly why that is happening, we can assume that not every student who left KIPP or Ginn Academy (or SLA, for that matter) left because their families moved… some students left because they weren’t having success.

How different would the current educational conversation be if the KIPP folks said, "Yes… in some of our schools, 25-40% of the families choose to leave KIPP, but KIPP isn’t for everyone, and for the students who stay, we do right by them?" What if these schools admitted that it would be much harder to have the success they have if they didn’t have the traditional schools to send kids back to when it didn’t work out? What if these schools admitted they didn’t have all the answers, and instead had to admit that, yes, they do amazing things for many students, but they haven’t figured out how to get to a significant percentage of their population, despite Herculean efforts?

Why isn’t that the dialogue right now? Because it’s not as easy to raise millions of dollars on "We’re figuring it out too?" But that would only explain one piece of that puzzle… why is it that Jay Matthews, the New York Times, the Education Empowerment Project, the US DoE and so many others so willing to promote a myth?

Because it is easier… because if we could only believe that we could solve all the problems of educating students in poverty with charismatic school leaders and hard working teachers… and that all the kids who don’t get the education they need are simply being underserved by those lazy teachers… that would absolve our society for not being more just, more equitable, more fair. We could point to those schools that succeed against all odds and say, "See… if they do it, every school should be able to do it." It is a myth that keeps us from really understanding what is necessary to solve the problems for the children of our cities. It is the myth of the schools that have solved the problems.

Except those schools haven’t.

Not completely. Not for every student. In the end, those schools — like all our schools — struggle and fail to reach every kid.

Just ask the other thirteen.