This article from the traditionally black Oakland Post argues for a different narrative about minority achievement and experimental schools, highlighting a program that sent 92% of its graduating class to college, with 65% off to four year universities.

Even more than promoting the sort of academic skills that would prove essential for higher education, the Berkeley College Prep program (BCP) placed “emphasis…on building positive Black identification through skill development, an ethnic approach to the Black experience, intense personal involvement of staff, and individualized attention to students.”

As much as standardized testing was held up as an “objective” measure of ability, programs such as BCP cultivated results by taking an opposite approach to education, focusing on building up a concept of self and community as well as teaching to each individual student rather than to a test, their impressive results indicating that their approach was effective.