下面是瑪麗塔又一些讓人辛酸的描述:
When we first started fifth grade, I used to have contact with one of the girls from my old school,
五年級時,我和一個過去上同一學校的女孩關系很好。
and whenever I left school on Friday, I would go to her house and stay there until my mom would get home from work.
每到周五放學,我就會去她家呆到我媽媽下班。
So I would be at her house and I'll be doing my homework. She would never have any homework, and she would say, "Oh, my God, you stay there late."
因此,我常常在她家做我的功課。但她永遠不會有任何功課。她會說:“哦,天哪,你呆得太晚了。”
Then she said she wanted to go to KIPP but then she would say that KIPP is too hard and she didn't want to do it.
她說她想去KIPP,但隨后又說在KIPP學習太痛苦了,她并不想這樣做。
And I would say, "Everyone says that KIPP is hard, but once you get the hang of it, it's not really that hard."
我說,“每個人都認為在KIPP學習很痛苦,但一旦習慣那里的一切,你就不會真的覺得痛苦了。”
She told me, "It's because you are smart." And I said, "No, everyone of us is smart."
她回答說:“這是因為你聰明。”我說:“不,我們每個人都是聰明的。”
And she was so discouraged because we stayed until five and we had a lot of homework and I told her that us having a lot of homework helps us do better in class.
她很失望,因為我一直到五點都在做那些功課。我告訴她,有大量的功課可以幫助我們做得更好。
And she told me she didn't want to hear the whole speech. All my friends are now from KIPP.
但她對我說,她不喜歡聽到這些。所以現(xiàn)在,我所有朋友都是從KIPP畢業(yè)的。
But think of things from Marita's perspective, she has made a bargain with her school. She will get up at 5:45 in the morning, go in on a Saturday, and do homework until 11 at night.
其實,從瑪麗塔的角度來看,她與學校其實是在條件互換。她每天5:45起床,而且周六也上課,做功課直到晚上11點。
In return, KIPP promises it will take kids like her who were stuck in poverty and give them a chance to get out. It will get 84 percent of them up to or above their grade level in mathematics.
而作為回報,KIPP為像她這樣貧窮的孩子提供一個學習的機會,這個機會會幫他們擺脫困境。這些學生當中84%的人會達到或超過同級別學生的數(shù)學能力。
On the strength of that performance, 90 percent of KIPP students get scholarships to private or parochial high schools instead of having to attend their own desultory high schools in the Bronx.
而且90%的KIPP學生能夠獲得私立或教區(qū)高中的獎學金,這樣他們就不用到布朗克斯那些死氣沉沉的學校上學。
And on the strength of that high school experience, more than 80 percent of KIPP graduates are now going on to college, in many cases being the first in their family to do so.
從該校高中學生的成績來看,80%以上的畢業(yè)生都會升入大學,而且他們還都是學生所在家庭中最先上大學的那個人。