My two daughters graduated from the Beacon School in 2000 & 2001. At the time it was a terrific school although it did lean left. It is a "special school" where the administrators had greater flexibility in choosing teachers and in teaching the NY state curriculum. The administration also had some flexibility in choosing students who had to apply.My children received an education equal to that offered at some of the better private schools. However, in recent years the school has been forced to take and keep students who are not highly motivated. Almost all students graduate and go to college.
My daughter attends Walnut Hills, a magnet school. They are required to learn Latin. They study ancient Greece and Rome. Her fellow students are of every color, and they are all there because they want to be there, because students that survive six years there generally have a 80+% chance of getting a full scholarship somewhere good. They have wonderful sports and performing arts programs, and very little problem with discipline. (They are also in the middle of a "bad neighborhood" with high crime and a horrible dropout rate for the regular school in that area.) The lesson for today? You don't give anybody a hand up by lowering their expectations. This is not a Democrat "we'll let you fail because you can't be expected to really achieve anything, you poor backward hyphanated-American" school. It is a "Old School" school with a classical curriculum, designed to help kids who want a good education get one without being distracted by "victims" who have already given up on themselves because their "leaders" make excuses for being lazy.
My wife and I laugh that our daughter "has no black friends." That is, she has a hundred friends, about half who are black. But she's been raised to be as color-blind as we can manage. I want her to judge as Martin Luther King, Jr. did...on the contents of the hearts of others, not by their skin. She knows winners of every race...and that makes the losers of every race all the more apparent. She has two highly involved parents that love her, set firm guidelines about what is good and bad, and expect her to humbly out-perform others, because she is so strong, kind and smart. If anybody loves their kids, they should give them limits, and have high expectations for whatever area they naturally excel in.