The vision: Help prepare low-income kids for careers in environmental science.

The reality: Some kids do well here, and teachers are proud to tell their success stories: the severely disabled boy who got a job as a Mercedes Benz mechanic, or the bright girl who spent a semester hiking, climbing and whitewater rafting at the Outdoor Academy in North Carolina. A few kids have been admitted to top colleges like Cornell and West Point. The students seem to like their teachers. Teachers are imaginative about how they match kids to help one another--for example, a Vietnamese boy taught another boy about computers while the other boy taught him English.

But the school, which serves many homeless children, children with special education needs, and students whose education has been interrupted, has a poor attendance rate and hasn't been able to help enough kids graduate on time. The Department of Education decided to phase it out for poor performance. The school admitted its last 9th graders in the fall of 2011 and will close in 2015. "We're all frustrated and disappointed," said Principal Clifford Siegel, who founded the school in 2003 after a long career as a teacher in the Bronx. "The teachers put a lot of effort into what they teach." (Clara Hemphill, January 2012.)