It Can Be Done

Check out this great column on the Mississippi Freedom Project, " nonprofit program, tucked into an obscure corner of an obscure place, offering academic enrichment, martial arts, media production classes, mentoring, exposure to writers like Rudyard Kipling, Alice Walker, Albert Camus and field trips to such far-flung places as Mexico, Washington, D.C., and Orlando." Median family income in the Mississippi Delta: $25,000. Teen pregnancy rate: 25 percent. Youth growing up in poverty: 50 percent.

According to the project's executive director, Greg McCoy, "Students who stick with the program and make it to that sixth year thus far have had 100 percent college enrollment and high school graduation rates." It can (it must) be done.