The Principal Principle

An Open Door
Ying Hua had been in the United States a short time when Roy Sunada, the AP coordinator at Marshall Fundamental High School in Pasadena, Calif., asked if she would like something tougher than the program for English learners. She nodded yes, then wavered when her first two European-history writing assignments from Sunada were totally beyond her. Sunada—determined to help all kids realize their potential—looked at her blank paper and told her not to worry. "Give yourself a try," he said. Ying went on to pass 13 AP exams, a school record, and win a Morehead scholarship to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. "There were many times when I almost wanted to give up," she says, "but knowing that Mr. Sunada is always there believing in me offered me strength."

Marshall, where most of the students are from low-income families, had only 37 AP exams with passing scores in 1997 when Sunada, born in a relocation camp for Japanese-Americans, became coordinator. Last year it had 163, and Sunada wants that number higher. His open-door policy on AP has not been popular with everyone, says AP calculus and statistics teacher Eric Mulfinger, but "even when the system didn't believe that poor or disadvantaged kids could succeed at high academic levels, Roy did."

Now an assistant principal at the school, Sunada, 61, is criticized for Marshall's low passing rate on the exams, about 26 percent, the result of letting everyone try the courses and tests. He says the faculty is working on that, but even students who struggle and fail in AP become much better prepared for college. Sunada, says Ying, "has opened the doors to many students, including myself, who would not have a chance otherwise."

No Frills, and a Future
YES Prep's name, small size and strong AP program suggest a prestigious private school. Instead it is a public school, a hard-to-find collection of old portable classrooms on a horse farm in southeast Houston. The school has no gym. The basketball court is out on the parking lot. "My favorite fund-raising line is, we are the only basketball team that gets practice rained out," says founder Chris Barbic.

Barbic, 37, was a partying frat boy at Vanderbilt, looking for a purpose in life, when he tried volunteering at a neighborhood center in a poor part of Nashville. He found that he loved working with low-income children, and loved teaching, particularly the thrill of creating his own school. At YES Prep, 78 percent of the students in the sixth- through 12th-grade school are from low-income families. Now the head of four YES Prep schools in Texas, Barbic started with just a sixth grade at a Houston elementary school with a terrible reputation. Parents saw how much more their children were learning, through projects and energetic teaching as well as a longer school day. They showed up several hundred strong for a series of key meetings that won official approval for Barbic to get his own campus, and grow.

Students cannot get a diploma at YES unless they take at least one college-level course in the high school and get into at least one four-year college. Like Teach for America, Barbic recruits recent grads to teach at YES schools. One of his new faculty members is Patricia Hernandez, a 2006 Stanford graduate, who five years ago was valedictorian of YES's first graduating class. Says Barbic: "She is a living, breathing example of what we are trying to do."