Raising Kings: A Three-Part Audio Series From 澳门跑狗论坛/NPR (Episode 1)
Introducing Washington, D.C.鈥檚 newest high school: the roughly $60 million Ron Brown College Preparatory High School, the capital city鈥檚 first all-male traditional public school.
The school is designed specifically to meet the needs of its young black male students 鈥 who are called 鈥渒ings.鈥 And for many of the young men, their needs are profound.
Two reporters, 澳门跑狗论坛鈥檚 Kavitha Cardoza and NPR鈥檚 Cory Turner, spent hundreds of hours with teachers, students, and parents from the school for a three-part audio series on Ron Brown鈥檚 first year.
In this episode, we鈥檒l meet Dr. Benjamin Williams, the principal, who personally recruited each of the 100 young men who enrolled as freshmen.
We鈥檒l also meet two of the men at the center of what makes Ron Brown so unusual: Dr. Charles Curtis and Dawaine Cosey, members of the school鈥檚 CARE team.
In the first few months of the academic year, the educators at Ron Brown work with an almost single-minded focus on establishing a school culture and ethos that few of the kings, and in many cases even teachers, have ever experienced.
They spend hours every week in restorative justice circles, putting offenders and their wronged parties together to talk through what鈥檚 happened and find ways to set things right. And the students resist. And some parents and school faculty push back too.
For Principal Williams and the CARE team especially, it鈥檚 an effort to convince many skeptics that this approach to educating young men of color is worth fighting for.
Listen to Episode One
This episode originally aired Oct. 18, 2017 on . It鈥檚 introduced by Code Switch鈥檚 Shereen Marisol Meraji and Gene Demby.
More episodes: Episode Two | Episode Three