Taking a Chance; Public Boarding School Reaps Great Success

June 9, 2010— -- Fifth-grader Giavonna Turner sits anxiously with her family in a crowded school gymnasium. On stage at the front of the room numbered ping pong balls spin around in a metal bingo barrel.

A man in a grey suit calls out numbers one by one as the balls roll out. "16, 2, 22..." Loud cheers erupt after each number, families hug, and tears of joy are shed. Giavonna and her family wait for number 19.

This is not your average bingo night. These students are waiting, hoping to hear their number called in the lottery to be accepted to the SEED School in southeast Washington, D.C. One-hundred seventy applicants are taking a chance on a better education and the opportunity to go to college. Only 40 ultimately will get spots.

SEED is located among some of the worst public schools in the country. Only 33 percent of students in the neighboring wards graduate from high school.

At SEED, 91 percent of ninth graders go on to graduate and 97 percent of graduating seniors are accepted to four-year colleges.

Giavonna learned about SEED when school representatives came to speak at her elementary school.

"She came home and she was so excited. Everything was about SEED," her mother Janella said. "She called me at work and she said 'Mommy please.'"

What's their secret to success? Imagine a world with a level playing field, where children from disadvantaged communities have the same opportunities as their counterparts raised in well-to-do suburbs. That was the vision behind the creation of SEED, the first public boarding school in the country.

"There are 100 things that I took for granted growing up ... that a lot of kids that grow up in economically secure neighborhoods can take for granted," said Eric Adler, who co-founded the SEED Foundation in 1997. "We are providing our students the same opportunities that most of the kids in other neighborhoods just naturally have as an accident of birth."