It's called the Nobel Prize in education, the top honor for the nation's best school district and this year New York City is hoping to win the crown.NY1 Education reporter Michael Meenan went along as the schools chancellor showed off a Bushwick High School to the people who get to pick the winner.
Bushwick's streets are tough. For a long time, nearly all the big high schools here were just as tough. But some young people say things are looking up.
"There's some high schools that are good; some that's bad,” said public school student Joe Lewis.
This is a story about one of the good high schools, the EBC High School for Public Service, and how it could help decide if the city wins the nation's most prestigious education award.
"Especially in a city of this size, it's incredible to see the gains we are seeing. There is so much that other districts can learn from what's going on in New York,” said Erica Lepping of the Broad Foundation.
Lepping works for the Broad Foundation, an organization set up by a wealthy philanthropist, Eli Broad, to improve the nation's schools, especially for Latino and African American students.
She and other school exerts toured the Bushwick high school to see if New York deserves top honors.
"I started off in the slow, and the not so -advanced math classes, and through the years I made it into the AP [advanced placement] math classes,” says high school student Wilmer Ramirez.
Improvements like that, as well as test score gains, better graduation rates, and innovative teaching are exactly what judges look at to pick a winner from four city finalists.
"What I am so impressed with and so interested about are his reform efforts around empowerment for schools and around accountability measures he's putting in place,” says Barbara Jenkins of the Broad Foundation.
But the way Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has pushed to hold principals and teachers responsible for better results, has met with opposition in New York City, especially from some parents groups who say they've been left out of the decision-making.
Klein points to results in schools such as EBC High School for Public Service under principal Victor Capellan.
"He's got a graduating class of 140 people and I bet better than 80 percent graduation rate," says Klein.
Bridgeport, Jersey City and Miami Dade are the other finalists in a competition for half a million dollars in scholarship money for its kids and lots of prestige.
The foundation will consider its choices over the summer and announce a top winner in September.
– Michael Meenan
