Photo from the SEED Foundation.

The new documentary “Waiting for Superman” includes the story of a DC fifth-grader named Anthony, who lives with his grandmother in a Ward 7 neighborhood assigned to the low-performing Sousa Middle School, which the Post’s Jay Mathews once called “an educational sinkhole.” Anthony and his grandmother are hoping he gets into a charter school called the SEED School of Washington instead.

SEED isn’t as well known as some other local charter schools like KIPP DC, but it’s gotten more attention since the film’s release, and for good reason.

In order to help kids do better in school, the SEED School takes them away from their home environments for five days a week and gives them a host of supporting services. The results of this educational experiment have been promising so far, and SEED believes their model can be used on a broader scale.

When consultants Eric Adler and Rajiv Vinnakota founded the school in 1998, it was the first and only urban public boarding school in the country. Much like Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone, Adler and Vinnakota saw the classroom as only one component of a college-preparatory education.

“The SEED model includes academic, residential, mental health, physical health, social, and enrichment programs,” explains Laura O’Connor, director of communications for the SEED Foundation. The school provides volunteer tutoring, extracurricular programs like robotics and cooking classes, and a scholarly environment where Facebook, MySpace, and television are forbidden.

Image from the SEED Foundaion.

The students, sixth graders through twelfth graders, wear uniforms and spend Sunday through Thursday nights living in clusters named after colleges and universities. During the summer, the school sends some kids to programs across America and the world, and every year a select group of high schoolers embarks on a two-week trip to Greece.

SEED is located less than a mile from Sousa Middle School, but in terms of academics it’s a world away. Since 2004, when the school graduated its first class of seniors, 96% of all SEED graduates have been accepted to four-year colleges. On the citywide CAS tests administered in 2009, 67% of SEED students scored proficient or better in math, and 54% in reading; this compares to 42% and 46% at Sousa, and only 16% and 19% at Anacostia High school, which Sousa feeds into.

The residential program and intensive focus on academics account for some of SEED’s success, but they’re not the only factors. Charter schools are sometimes accused of cherrypicking students to achieve better test scores than district school. Like all charter schools with more applicants than spaces, SEED holds a random lottery to allocate seats (O’Connor says there are at least two or three applicants for every spot), but the school’s demographics are a bit different from those at Sousa and Anacostia.

All three schools are almost entirely black, but only 73% of SEED’s students were low-income in 2008, compared to 85% at Anacostia and 87% at Sousa. 13% of SEED’s students were special-ed students, compared to 21% at both Anacostia and Sousa. Geographically, SEED’s student body is a bit more diverse, although O’Connor says more than two thirds come from Wards 7 and 8.

Aside from the possibility of demographic advantages, SEED skeptics have pointed to two main causes for concern in the school’s model. First, as a 2009 New York Times Magazine article points out, SEED’s rate of attrition hovered between 20% and 30% for much of its first decade, rendering its near-perfect graduation rates a little less impressive; if only the most determined students make it to the end of twelfth grade, it’s no surprise they all graduate. The school has made great strides in addressing this problem, and the attrition rate fell to 11% in 2008, among the lowest of any charter school in the city.

The other potential problem some point to is the cost of a SEED education. The SEED Foundation relied on private donations for the initial start-up costs of the school, but since it’s been up and running the DC government has contributed 94% of the SEED School’s operating budget, with the remainder coming from the federal government (Title I funding) and the private sector.

The District’s contribution includes about $10,000 per student for day school, plus another $25,000 per student for the boarding program. (The city’s education budget was amended in 1998 to allow for funding boarding programs, thanks to lobbying by Adler and Vinnakota.)

That extra $25,000 per student means SEED costs DC more than twice as much as a normal charter school. But O’Connor argues that day schools aren’t the right point of comparison. “SEED’s $25,000 is low when compared with other costs for serving many of the same children, such as foster care ($25,129 per child), Job Corps ($40,000 per young adult) or the $87,961 that states spend on average to incarcerate a juvenile per year,” she points out. Compared to those alternatives, sending a child to SEED seems like a downright bargain.

The success of the SEED School’s model over the last twelve years has meant it’s no longer the only urban public boarding school in the country. It’s now one of two, together with the SEED School of Maryland, which opened its doors in Baltimore in 2008.

More are on their way, including Chicago’s Earn Academy and potential SEED schools in Cincinnati, Florida, New York, and Tennessee. In the long term, plans are even more ambitious. “Our ultimate goal is to have SEED or SEED-like schools in every urban school district in the United States,” says O’Connor.

Tagged: dc, education

Sam Feldman is a journalist and native Washingtonian.