One of the most highly regarded charter schools in the country (featured on 60 Minutes) has opened up on a former Agler Road golf course near Port Columbus. It's called KIPP which stands for Knowledge Is Power Program. Its goal is to educate and shape tomorrow's leaders.
The new school on the former Bridgeview Golf Course may look like a pricey private school, but it's free. It's a charter, part of the Knowledge is Power Program started 20 years ago in Texas. The school is open to anyone who lives within I-270, but most come from disadvantaged homes and have a lot of catching up to do.
"By the time low-income kids reach the third or fourth grade in our country, they're typically two to three grades behind their middle class peers," said Hannah Powell, the executive director for KIPP Columbus.
She said, to close the achievement gap, the school starts at 8 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m. with an optional after-school program till 7:30 at night. She says the kids have lots of learning to do. The KIPP staff wants all of the students to graduate college.
"For us it starts on day one. And the conversation is 'What year are you going to go to college?'" she said.
There are motivational signs everywhere. It seems to be working.
Manzona Bryant, 12, wants to be an attorney and he is already making plans.
"I would like to go to the Ohio State University, get my undergrad, then go to Harvard," he said.
There's discipline at the school. Kids walk in straight lines. They're taught to look at the person speaking, snap fingers to reward a right answer, and learn from mistakes.
"Everybody's human and makes mistakes, and they let you... they let you fix them and they show you how to fix them," said seventh grader Savannah Rowell.
"In a deeper way, it's really that our kids have access to live a life of opportunity and choice. And so whatever our kids do in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years...they're changing the world," added the executive director.
Next year, KIPP Columbus will add a high school, and by the end of the decade, the school expects to have 2,000 students on campus.
Nationally, 85 percent of KIPP kids graduate from college.