School choice puts one more card in parents’ decks, Gaston Caperton says.

Caperton:    I think any way that we can, that we can bring a better opportunity for students…  We have in New York now, the College Board has not 14 schools that we run in New York City that are from the 6th grade to the 12th grade, small schools.  You see a school within a school, and we’ve had remarkable success in those schools.  I think those students are coming out of there, in New York…  I mean, in New York City, the graduation rate is a little above 50% [or about] 80%, and we have, about 80% of these students are prepared to go to some sort of post-high school graduation.  Valedictorians are going to the very best schools in the country.  So, I know what you can do when you put a special effort into a school.  We’re only able to do that because we’ve gotten great support from the Gates Foundation and other foundations.  So, we’ve had additional resources that we could put in the schools to really bring them up to the level.  The students rise to that level when they’re given the challenge.