Closing the achievement gap

"This is the story of Amistad Academy, a charter school founded in 1999 by a group of Yale Law School students who enlisted the help of local business and community leaders. Amistad serves about 250 students, 97% of whom are black and Latino kids in grades five through eight. 84% of the children qualify for the federal free lunch program. These students represent a population that is traditionally underserved by the district public school system; they enter Amistad in the fifth grade, on average, more than two years below grade level. But by the time they leave Amistad in the eighth grade, most of these urban kids are doing as well or better than their white suburban counterpart." -- container.