[Kevin]

As far as transportation goes, my wife teaches at a charter school and many of the kids ride the city bus system to school and many do so while either being emancipated and paying their own bills, living with a grandparent or living with a state-appointed guardian. It's really a pleasure for me to have the contact with those kids that I do get to have... and in very many of their cases, the parents are either hostile to the kids' wishes to get educated or just outright ambivalent. Just this morning, my wife was telling me about one of her kids who will be applying to Howard. The kid lives with her grandmother who tells her school is a waste of time, she's too dumb, too ugly, etc. to be anything or anybody, etc.

I'm sure that situation is very common. It's a good thing this kid's in a charter school where there exist a culture which tells her that it doesn't matter what the grandmother says and that she can persevere despite all the things going against her.

I do think that ultimately, parents OR schools can save these kids... any attempt to engineer society though, I think, short of doing good things with individuals and letting them succeed is doomed to fail.

As for KIPP schools, new ones are opening all the time. It's an excellent model and the reorganization of failed public schools will open the door to many more KIPP schools down the line.