A School to Believe In
Letters to the Editor
by Marvin Greenberg
January 25, 2009
In case you think that there’s no chance to fix education in Rhode Island, visit what I call the Miracle on Public Street, better known as the Main Campus of the MET school.
No, not a private prep school, no fences, no graffiti but populated by students happy to go to school, who have the highest attendance rate of any high school in Rhode Island and got there by lottery. Some 75 percent are from Providence, and the rest are from as far away as Little Compton; you have to want to go there to travel all that distance every day.
What makes it unique is you meet kids who want to be in school, and are willing to tell you why and what’s so different at this school.
Is it unique? Yes, in Rhode Island, but around the U.S. there are now 68 of this kind of school, and others overseas, from the Netherlands to Australia.
If you listen to these students, they will tell you how and why they got to the MET, and how if it weren’t for the MET they would be dropouts now.
I sat in, just the other week, listening to a small group of kids involved in the MET Entrepreneur program, kids who have already in some cases started their own small businesses, who helped start the Big Picture Soda Company, whose product is in stores like the East Side Market and Whole Foods.
You have to listen to each describe their passion, how they learned to create a business plan and how at the end of the month they will appear before a panel to describe their idea and ask for funding. Not talking about millions or even thousands of dollars but much smaller amounts to get them started. They are being prepared for the real world.
This while they are attending school every day, going to an internship once a week for the day, keeping their dreams alive.
You have to see it in action to believe it. You say you don’t believe in miracles? Neither did I, but it’s being done right here in Providence. We can help our kids; they are like sponges, ready and eager to learn and produce. They just need the chance.
Marvin Greenberg
Riverside, RI