Shining stars: East Harlem's Cristo Rey High School is an educational beacon

The graduating class of a high school in East Harlem, minority teenagers from families whose average annual income is less than $32,000, has set an example of achievement for all of New York.
Fifty young men and women will get diplomas today at the 2010 commencement celebration of Cristo Rey New York High School. Each and every one is going to college. Forty-nine are headed for four-year schools, including top-ranked institutions like Georgetown, Colgate, Lehigh and NYU. One chose a community college.
Best wishes to all, and congratulations to Cristo Rey for developing in just six years of operation into a unique success story in the education reform movement that has taken hold in the city.
Across the five boroughs, dynamic new schools are delivering far higher qualities of education than have long been provided in poor neighborhoods. These schools are typically charters or small-scale traditional publics.
Cristo Rey is neither. It is Catholic, although nearly a quarter of the students are not members of the church. And it is thriving at a time when Catholic education suffers declining enrollment.
The school's approach marries high classroom standards with a path-breaking employment requirement. All students, from freshmen to seniors, go to jobs one day a week at major businesses, which send the kids' earnings to Cristo Rey.
Those checks defray 60% of the school's expenses, but the experience for the teenagers of functioning in a topflight environment is invaluable. Among the employers are JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, accounting company PricewaterhouseCoopers, insurers Hartford Financial Products and MetLife, and the law firms of Skadden Arps and Sullivan & Cromwell.
Call that a win for the students, a win for the school and a win for good corporate citizenship.
Cristo Rey's 100% college acceptance rate is all the more proof that kids from low-income households will flourish if guided to meet high standards by first-rate teachers who go the extra mile.
In fact, the school turns away applicants from families that have the financial wherewithal to pay more than a small amount for tuition.
And its program is targeted to meet the needs of average students.
The work-study concept was born in Chicago in 1996 and has blossomed into a network of schools in 22 cities. Another member of the network, Lourdes Academy, is in its second year of operation in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Rev. Joseph Parkes, a Jesuit priest who serves as Cristo Rey president, says the work component "may be even more important educationally than it is financially. The students learn poise and confidence that can't be taught in the classroom."
Ashley Saucedo of the Bronx, who is headed for Georgetown, said working at top law firms, where partners earn millions, "at first scared me" but became a formative experience "as they gave me more responsibility."
In her opinion, Cristo Rey is "the best school ever." Enough said.