A school that succeeds where others have failed

A Jesuit high school in inner-city Chicago is getting great results with kids that the educational establishment has traditionally failed.

What's their formula for success?

At the age of 14, children must commit, single-mindedly, to working for a place at college.

The dress code is strict, punctuality rigorously enforced, and students who lie about being on drugs are kicked out. So are any who promote, or recruit for, gangs.

In return they get an intensive high school education in small classes, freedom from intimidation and a counselling system that does its best to defuse domestic issues such as abuse, violence, drugs and crime.

It costs $10,000 (£5,300) a year, in a neighbourhood where the average family of five lives on little more than $30,000 (£15,900).

And how it finds the money is perhaps the real secret ingredient of Cristo Rey's success - a formula in which there seems to be no losers.

Read the whole story.

BBC NEWS: From Our Own Correspondent | The Jesuits' school experiment

Related: Cristo Rey (Christ The King) Jesuit School, Chicago, IL