Small school, big results.

• Author: Garland, Sarah
• Position: NEW YORK CITY

BRONX, New York -- Jayquan Hyman, a gangly fifteen-year-old ninth grader, seemed destined to drop out after starting high school last September. He failed fifth grade and was older than his classmates, had spent years in special education classes, and cut classes throughout middle school. He was suspended within weeks of the start of school for cursing at a teacher. He was sullen and angry. He was also black, male, and living in the South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in America. The one person in his family who had gone to college was an aunt, now deceased. He was the sort of student that a principal might hope would quit to spare the school the trouble.

A decade ago, Jayquan would have been enrolled in South Bronx High, a school of about 1,000 students in a neighborhood of rusted train trestles and abandoned lots. Back then, the school had a reputation as a dumping ground for some of the borough's worst students, and it's likely Jayquan would have ended up among the one in five who dropped out every year. But South Bronx High had been dosed.

Instead, Jayquan, a basketball player who hopes to make a career of it, enrolled at Urban Assembly School for Careers in Sports, one of three small schools installed in the old South Bronx building. Principal Felice Lepore understands the importance of engaging ninth graders quickly, before they have a chance to falter. Studies in a number of cities have found that failing even one ninth-grade class drastically reduces a student's chance of graduating. In the typical large high school, teachers with more seniority opt to work only with seniors and juniors. But Lepore says that at Urban Assembly the school's most effective teachers, regardless of seniority, are assigned to teach ninth graders. The school puts its "best foot forward" for freshmen, she said.

The school uses sports--batting averages, the arc of a basketball shot, the biography of...