Big shout out to Chicago’s Urban Prep Academy! The school reached an incredible milestone, graduating every senior for the third year in a row. The only all-African-American, all-male charter high school in Chicago has not only graduated the entire class, but all have been accepted to college.
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According to the Chicago Tribune, the academy also said that 83 percent of its first graduating class in 2010 has re-enrolled in a second year of college, a rebuttal to critics of the school who has charged that students aren’t always ready for college.
But Urban Prep CEO Tim King denied that troubled students are forced out or encouraged to leave saying:
“We take the opposite view. We devote time and energy to those students so that they understand they can do well and they can have success if they modify their behavior.”
King announced this year’s perfect college rate at an assembly at Urban Prep’s Englewood campus earlier this morning.
Urban Prep’s success in making college a reality for African-American children from tough, low-income neighborhoods has won national attention.
Last year’s graduation rate for African-American males in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) was 44 percent. About half of those who graduate enroll in college, according to CPS.
Urban Prep spends about $12,000 per pupil, far more than a typical CPS school. Once students graduate, the school stays in touch with them.
A rigorous alumni department brings students in over the summer to familiarize them with the challenges ahead and continues to contact graduates twice a month by phone, email or on Facebook.
It is an amazing program they have at Chicago’s Urban Prep, congrats to the graduating class of 2012!
