CHICAGO, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- A New York City educator is making a detailed study of Chicago's Noble Street Charter High School in hopes of replicating it in the East Bronx.
Carla Theodorou has found that Noble Street's unique practices, including papering the school's walls with alumni's college pennants and holding three-hour detentions, combine the right mix of carrots and sticks to grow a healthy and successful student body, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Theodorou works for Replications Inc., a non-profit organization supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation whose sole purpose is to identify successful school models and support the proliferation of similar institutions.
While charter schools often replicate themselves within the same urban area, it is less common for urban school officials to seek input from other areas of the country.
"New Yorkers are provincial and parochial. They tend to think that if it wasn't invented here, it's not worth it," said Eric Nadelstern, chief academic officer for new public schools in New York.
Theodorou will eventually be the principal of the new Big Apple school.
