Fifty Years Later, 'A Better Chance' Trains Young Scholars : Code Switch : NPR

Fifty Years Later, 'A Better Chance' Trains Young Scholars : Code Switch : NPR: Fifty-five boys — all poor and almost all African-American — were a part of a bold educational experiment in the early 1960s. They were placed in an intensive summer school program. If they finished, the headmasters of 16 prep schools agreed to accept them. Tuition paid.

Planning for that experiment started in 1963 at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, one year before President Lyndon B. Johnson declared his 'War on Poverty.' Today, what began with 55 students and 16 schools has become an institution celebrating its 50th anniversary. It's called 'A Better Chance.'

'A Better Chance' now has 300 member schools, funding from individuals, foundations and corporations, and nearly 14,000 alumni. Governor Deval Patrick, singer-song writer Tracy Chapman and Ford Foundation President Luis Antonio Ubi�as are among the program's beneficiaries.