<\/p>\n
DEBORAH POTTER<\/strong>, correspondent: The outlook for many young African-American boys is grim. National studies say about half will drop out of high school. But for these boys the future is considerably brighter.<\/p>\n MARCUS WASHINGTON<\/strong> (WJA Assistant Headmaster, speaking to students): Five, four, three, two\u2014two, one. Let\u2019s go, let\u2019s go, let\u2019s go, let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: This small middle school is bucking the trend.<\/p>\n WASHINGTON<\/strong> (speaking to students): Come on, fellas. Let\u2019s get in line.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: In just eight years it\u2019s built a strong track record, with every one of its graduates either enrolled in or graduated from high school. More than 80 percent have gone on to college.<\/p>\n WASHINGTON<\/strong> (speaking to student): Later on we\u2019ve got to talk about something.<\/p>\n STUDENT<\/strong>: All right.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: Washington Jesuit Academy [WJA] is an independent Catholic school. All of its students are African American or Latino. Most are not Catholic. Tuition is $18,000 a year, but families pay nothing. The money comes mainly from private donations and foundation grants.<\/p>\n SHANA HAIRE<\/strong> (WJA Parent): I just love my kids, you know, and I want the best for them. If you have your education you can go anywhere. Anything that you want to do in life, you can do it.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: Shana Haire\u2019s son, Domonic, is in seventh grade at WJA and willingly gets up before dawn to begin a rigorous 12-hour day at school, 11 months a year.<\/p>\n DOMONIC HAIRE<\/strong>: It\u2019s fun to do because you learn more every day, you know, you get to interact more with the students, so it\u2019s like it\u2019s another part of your family.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: Male teachers, small classes, and well-equipped classrooms are the norm here.<\/p>\n TEACHER<\/strong> (speaking to student): Excellente!<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: But what really sets the school apart is the student body. Three-quarters of the boys live in single-parent households. One in five has a parent in prison. The average family income is slightly above the poverty line, so the school feeds its students breakfast and lunch, as well as a complete dinner five days a week. And there\u2019s something else on the menu:<\/p>\n JOSEPH POWERS<\/strong> (WJA Headmaster, speaking to students): Let us remind ourselves right now that we are in the presence of God.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: Religion and an emphasis on moral values<\/p>\n POWERS<\/strong> (speaking to students): Today\u2019s focus is going to be on gratitude. Where have you seen gratitude? Where have you seen it in action here?<\/p>\n STUDENT<\/strong>: Your peers recognizing your mistakes and trying to help you correct them.<\/p>\n POWERS<\/strong>: How about that, guys? Thanking, being grateful to your peers for pointing out something that you\u2019re doing wrong. Most people don\u2019t like being corrected, right? You\u2019re doing something wrong and if your peers are pointing it out and you know you\u2019re doing it wrong, you need to be grateful for that, because they want you to get better. We want you to get better every single day here.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: Washington Jesuit Academy is one of 64 schools in 27 states and the District of Columbia that use a similar faith-based curriculum. They\u2019re part of what\u2019s called the Nativity-Miguel Network, educating boys and girls from some of the poorest communities in the country. Two-thirds of the schools, including WJA, have opened in the past decade since a wealthy businessman set up a foundation to support the network with almost $10 million in grants. Many of the boys get scholarships paid for by individual donors.<\/p>\n MARY CLAIRE RYAN<\/strong> (Executive Director, Nativity-Miguel Network of Schools): People want to be a part of something good. People want to be a part of something that works. People want to be a part of something that is effective.<\/p>\n TEACHER<\/strong> (speaking to class): Make sure you get through all five religions today\u2026<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: Almost all of the network schools are affiliated with Catholic religious orders. About half are co-ed, and the vast majority are middle schools, focused on children ages 11 to 13.<\/p>\n POWERS<\/strong> (speaking to students): It\u2019s not a social period, it\u2019s a work period, right?<\/p>\n RYAN<\/strong>: Generally students are coming to us below grade level. What many of our students are not lacking in, though, is a desire to do well and motivation to do well. A teacher senses in a child that level of ambition. Children can tell even by an environment, a physical environment, that \u201cI matter.\u201d Children know this.<\/p>\n ANN CLARK<\/strong> (WJA Director of Counseling Services): They come from schools where they\u2019ve hidden in the back row for years and passed, and we ask them to work 12 hours a day 11 months of the year in very small classes where there\u2019s nowhere to hide, in the service of a future that is not always imaginable to them.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: And yet they respond to that?<\/p>\n CLARK<\/strong>: They respond to that like plants to light.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: Not all students thrive, however. Nationally, about 30 percent of students who enroll in Nativity-Miguel schools don\u2019t graduate. Many are dismissed for academic or behavior problems. Severe family dysfunction, not a lack of desire to learn, is often to blame.<\/p>\n CLARK<\/strong>: That\u2019s pretty bad. That is pretty bad. But you know what? We all sleep well at night because we give them every possible chance, every possible chance.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: The support starts at school with a required two-hour study hall after dinner five nights a week, supervised by teachers and volunteer tutors. Nativity-Miguel schools also provide academic support and counseling to students after they graduate, helping them win scholarships to elite high schools like Gonzaga, a Jesuit prep school in Washington, DC, where Demitrius McNeil is now a junior. He wouldn\u2019t be here, he says, without WJA.<\/p>\n DEMITRIUS MCNEIL<\/strong>: If you\u2019re a good person overall, then academics will come, you know, so they taught me how to be a good person first, and then they taught me overall how to become well academically. It\u2019s a wonderful opportunity that\u2019s not given every day in every other school. You will quickly find that out. It\u2019s for kids that\u2019s willing to put in the work and the effort.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: With just 76 enrolled in grades six, seven, and eight, WJA isn\u2019t easy to get into. There are at least three applicants for every opening. Admissions requirements include a low family income, decent grades, and a motivated parent. Most students, like Elijah Simms, came here because their mothers pushed them. As a Muslim, Elijah wondered how he\u2019d handle being at a Jesuit school 12 hours a day.<\/p>\n ELIJAH SIMMS<\/strong>: My first instinct was like no, I will not, definitely, I will never go to this school ever in my life.<\/p>\n TEACHER<\/strong> (speaking at assembly): Most improved, seventh grade, Elijah Simms.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: \u2026and thanking his teachers.<\/p>\n SIMMS<\/strong>: The teachers are more caring here. They care about me as a person. They push you to a higher level.<\/p>\n TEACHER<\/strong> (speaking at assembly): Seventh-grade student of the week, Domonic Haire.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: Remember Domonic? He\u2019s a Baptist who couldn\u2019t be more thrilled to have earned a bracelet with the words \u201cMen for Others,\u201d a paramount objective of Jesuit education.<\/p>\n DOMONIC HAIRE<\/strong>: It says \u201cMan for Others,\u201d and in our school being a man for others is a big thing; because it\u2019s an all-boys school they want us to grow as men and to be helpful to the community and to be close to God and help others in need.<\/p>\n CLARK<\/strong>: We do this not to create Catholics, but because we are Catholic. It\u2019s the social justice teachings of the church that drive us and that basically \u201cMen for Others\u201d kind of works in almost any religious setting that you have or any religious creed. It\u2019s basically leaving things better than you found them.<\/p>\n RYAN<\/strong>: We\u2019ve all heard stories about the ridicule that a uniformed child might get. But to me it\u2019s about, you know, does this learning environment create or help generate within a student a strong moral character that has them\u2014that gives them the ability to navigate difficult situations within a community? Does it give them the ability to influence their peers, influence their family?<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: Family involvement is critical at WJA. Parents must attend monthly meetings, and the school hosts an annual family retreat.<\/p>\n CLARK<\/strong>: A weekend to spend with your child and be able to sit down and talk to them is a great, great gift for them to give each other, and that\u2019s what we hear from the parents and even from the boys sometimes: \u201cIt was just great to be with my Mom.\u201d<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: The school\u2019s main goal is simple but audacious: to shatter the stereotype that poor minority students can\u2019t succeed.<\/p>\n CLARK<\/strong>: When you\u2019ve been told you can\u2019t, you can\u2019t, you can\u2019t, you can\u2019t, you believe you can\u2019t. We tell them you can and you will. You can and you will, and then we say and look, you have when they get there, and they\u2019re shocked.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: About 5,000 students have graduated so far from Nativity-Miguel schools nationwide. Two-thirds have gone on to college. They leave middle school believing anything is possible.<\/p>\n DOMONIC HAIRE<\/strong>: College-wise I want to go to Yale, MIT, the school called Texas Christian University, or Harvard.<\/p>\n CLARK<\/strong>: I think every time a graduate walks through the door and he is proud of himself and on the road to something meaningful for his life it\u2019s just the greatest feeling, and they\u2019re just great kids.<\/p>\n POTTER<\/strong>: And they\u2019re kids who carry high expectations that they\u2019ll give back to these schools and their communities, helping to break the cycle of poverty.<\/p>\n For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I\u2019m Deborah Potter in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n![\"post01-jesuitacademy\"](\"https:\/\/pbs-wnet-preprod.digi-producers.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2010\/11\/post01-jesuitacademy.jpg\")
STUDENT<\/strong>: Good morning, Mr. Washington.<\/p>\n![\"post02-jesuitacademy\"](\"https:\/\/pbs-wnet-preprod.digi-producers.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2010\/11\/post02-jesuitacademy.jpg\")
SHANA HAIRE<\/strong>: I\u2019m a single mom. His dad isn\u2019t around. I like the fact that most of the faculty is men. He definitely needs that in his life\u2014someone he can relate to.<\/p>\n![\"post03-jesuitacademy\"](\"https:\/\/pbs-wnet-preprod.digi-producers.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2010\/11\/post03-jesuitacademy.jpg\")
STUDENT<\/strong>: When I help somebody with their homework they said thank you.<\/p>\n![\"post04-jesuitacademy\"](\"https:\/\/pbs-wnet-preprod.digi-producers.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2010\/11\/post04-jesuitacademy.jpg\")
RYAN<\/strong>: These are the years where students academically can slip very quickly and quite severely and get off path.<\/p>\n![\"post05-jesuitacademy\"](\"https:\/\/pbs-wnet-preprod.digi-producers.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2010\/11\/post05-jesuitacademy.jpg\")
TEACHER<\/strong> (speaking to students): Get your piece of paper, take it step by step. I\u2019m not going to do the work for you.<\/p>\n![\"post06-jesuitacademy\"](\"https:\/\/pbs-wnet-preprod.digi-producers.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2010\/11\/post06-jesuitacademy.jpg\")
POTTER<\/strong>: Now he\u2019s winning awards…<\/p>\n![\"post07-jesuitacademy\"](\"https:\/\/pbs-wnet-preprod.digi-producers.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2010\/11\/post07-jesuitacademy.jpg\")
POTTER<\/strong>: What many of these students find when they go home after school are tough neighborhoods where they\u2019re expected to set a good example.<\/p>\n