Program Aims to Groom Leaders by Taking Children out of N.Y. System, Into Private Schools and on to Ivy League : Gifted Minority Students Are Prepped to Fulfill the American Dream
The idea was planted 11 years ago by a public schoolteacher in the South Bronx: Find gifted minority students, give them some intensive instruction and place them in exclusive private schools.
This spring that idea bore fruit.
Some of the finest universities in the country--Princeton, Northwestern, Pennsylvania, Oberlin--gave degrees to 10 students from New York, mostly from disadvantaged neighborhoods, who entered the “Prep for Prep” program in 1978 as 11- and 12-year-olds.
“They go to private schools and colleges like Princeton, but they never forget where they came from,” says Frankie Cruz, 22, who was in that first group of students. “I never forgot the South Bronx, and I hope to use my newly acquired skills to give something back to that community.”
That’s just how the founder, Gary Simons, pictured it.
‘Leadership Development’
“What we’re really interested in is leadership development,” says Simons, 43. “It’ll be another six or eight years before they’ll get out into positions in society.”
There are about 550 Prep for Prep students who will be attending the city’s best private schools this fall. Another 150 from the program’s early days will be in college.
More than 1,700 of the most talented minority students in the city applied this year for only 150 spots.
“It’s probably harder to get into Prep than to get into Harvard,” says Sherry Wang, dean of the preparatory program.
Those who make it will go from graffiti-scarred, numbered schools--P.S. 121, P.S. 183--to independent schools with names such as Fieldston, Dalton, Collegiate, Buckley.
Leaving Friends Behind
They often travel from poor to affluent circumstances for the school day. And they are suddenly surrounded by white kids.
“I was leaving all my friends behind and I didn’t know what private school would be like,” says Lourdes Sastre, a 16-year-old Latino girl who just finished her junior year at Nightingale School. “Then later, some of my friends would say, ‘You’re acting white.’ ”
“I lost a lot of friends that way,” says Cherell Carr, a 16-year-old from Brooklyn who is black and just finished her junior year at Dalton on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
“That’s when I found out who my real friends are,” Sastre says.
The core of the program is a 14-month stretch of intensive instruction for public school fifth- and sixth-graders, to get them ready for the exclusive independent schools. (That’s preparation for preparatory schools--Prep for Prep.)
“You can’t imagine how hard it really can be until you get into it,” says Luanda Williams, an 11-year-old who will move from the sixth grade at P.S. 121 in the Bronx to Trinity School on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in the fall. “The first summer is the toughest. You don’t know what’s going on.”
Her father, Franklin Williams, is a bus driver who grew up poor in Jamaica. He and his wife, who would read nightly to their daughter, knew Prep for Prep was the unmistakable knock of opportunity.
“When I heard there was this opportunity to go to a better school, I thought, ‘This could be a better chance in life,’ ” Franklin Williams says. “It’s very hard, but there’s a challenge in everything. Nothing good is easy.”
Children accepted into Prep for Prep find themselves immersed in a rigorous summer program from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. five days a week. They continue attending their public schools for the sixth grade, but go to Prep for Prep classes every Wednesday evening and all day Saturday.
This is followed by another summer of special schooling, after which they enter a private school. Prep for Prep continues to track the students, offering counseling and tutoring.
All of the students attending private schools get aid of some kind, with more than three-quarters of them on full or nearly full scholarships. When it comes time to choose a college, they are given assistance in applying for aid. All of the students receive some college aid, many getting full scholarships.
In 1987, a similar program called Prep 9 was begun for ninth-grade students, who go off to boarding schools.
Funded by Gifts, Grants
Prep for Prep has a $1.9-million budget for its preparatory program, counseling, tutoring and administrative costs. It’s covered by grants from foundations and corporations and gifts from individuals. State and city money accounts for 2% of the budget.
About one-quarter of those accepted into Prep for Prep drop out of the 14-month program. But 95% of those who are accepted into private schools complete their secondary education there.
This year’s 46 high school seniors headed for, among other places, Duke, Vassar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Carnegie Mellon.
Behind all of this is Simons, whose unassuming manner belies an ardent desire to change the world. In a nutshell, he’s trying to produce leaders--social, political, artistic, scientific--from the minority community.
“We’re looking at a society that’s becoming increasingly pluralistic,” Simons says. “My sense is that the old standby, the American Dream, is very corny but very powerful. It undergirds our collective consciousness.
“But there is an enormous gap between the rhetoric of the American Dream and the blemished reality.”
Simons himself attended public school, albeit the rarefied halls of the Bronx High School of Science. “When I grew up, I never realized there was another set of schools,” he says.
Public Schools ‘Destroy’ Kids
As a teacher of gifted students in the South Bronx, Simons despaired of watching talented children languish in unchallenging, sometimes chaotic public schools.
“Most of those kids get destroyed long before they get to the starting gate,” he says.
Outside the classroom, “The environment would mow them down. Peer pressure. There is a density of kids who don’t have a sense of options, and that reinforces the limitations.”
“The public school system doesn’t meet the needs of the young people of the community,” Wang says.
“Most of the children come from gifted programs or magnet schools, but they’re still in very large classes. They don’t have the skills to compete at the collegiate level.”
‘One Person Can Have Effect’
Prep for Prep grew out of Simons’ field work toward a doctorate in gifted education. He never got that degree--work on the program swamped him, he says--but he succeeded in proving that “one person can have an effect on people’s lives.”
Simons wants the Prep for Prep students to end up in positions where they can “legitimately and effectively affect decisions.”
“From their own lives, they may have a sense of how public policy most impacts those least able to influence it,” he says. “We want to inculcate a sense of social responsibility.”
“They tell us, ‘It’s not about social welfare, it’s about social change. You’re capable people--we need people in power who represent everybody,’ ” says Charles Guerrero, a 16-year-old from the Bronx who graduated from Fieldston this spring and will attend Harvard in September.
Says Frankie Cruz, who was one of Simons’ students in the Bronx: “For a selected few students, he made the American Dream possible. You can say it’s idealistic, but through hard work and the kind of commitment he demands, he made it successful.”
Tough Adjustments
That commitment means 11- and 12-year-olds who find their summers shot, all for an intangible goal years in the future.
“I didn’t feel I was losing out on anything. I felt I was gaining everything,” says Angel Colon, a 12-year-old from Brooklyn who will switch from P.S. 250 to Packer Collegiate in the fall.
“But the adjustment period was tough,” he says. “For example, my best friend would always call me about his new comic books, his new bike. He’d say he went to the pool Friday, he went to Great Adventure Wednesday.”
His mother, Damaris Dumey, recalls him saying, “When I’m small, why make me give up my summer?”
“I feel the program has secured his future, academically,” she says. “If it wasn’t for this program, he wouldn’t be on his feet today, because of the peer pressure.”
Work ‘Overwhelming’
Luanda Williams found “the amount of work you get every night is overwhelming. Sometimes I’m up to 11 o’clock. I think, if I make it through this, I’ll go to one of the best schools and everything will work out.”
Sometimes the social adjustment is just as big.
“One of the first things that happens is their speech patterns change, they sound different,” says Martha Boyd, a counselor who holds sessions for the children that cover everything from etiquette to drugs to getting along with rich white kids.
“This bothers some children--’You’re not sounding like you’re supposed to,’ ” she says. “Their dress changes, their values change, their behavior changes. We tell them change is all right, it’s natural. Don’t be afraid of it.”
