Yes it's one of those miracles. They're rare. When they happen they do warm our hearts. I happened on the story in an article of the Smithsonian Magazine but not till about six months after it happened.

It seems a maverick named Ramon Gonzalez created, back in 2003, a new thing out of an old wreck of a public middle school in the South Bronx. It's a place where problem kids and problem schools are often considered intractable and hopeless. Of the student population, 90 percent qualify for free lunches; 15 percent live in shelters; 20 percent need help learning English.

Although he had originally planned to become a lawyer, Gonzalez had, in college, done some research on urban gangs. He learned that they run what he terms "a whole underground economy: they're selling CDs, protection, drugs. They have marketable skills." But by the time they're grown, they have prison records, and can't get a job.

He dumped the goal of law school. He decided he'd rather get people earlier in life. He'd won a scholarship to Cornell, and went on to Columbia University Teachers College. Then he joined the city schools as a teacher. He landed at Middle School 223.

It was considered such a dangerous place nobody stayed there for long.

So he got his chance to experiment, and he ran with it. He called the thing the Laboratory School of Finance and Technology. He knew no street kid would pass up a chance to learn how to make money.

He built his first staff from Teach for America (a nonprofit that sends out new graduates to problem schools). It's hard to rescue kids who are way below grade-level, so the school holds on to them after school and on Saturdays with clubs and sports. "Our kids can do PowerPoint and web design; they know every piece of Microsoft Office," Gonzalez says. There's also a Mouse Squad which repairs the school's computers. He's brought in the Reading and Writing Project from Teachers College to get the kids excited about using words.

It's four years later. Almost all of the original teachers have stayed. Each of the 150 kids was chosen from four who applied for the spot. Gonzalez has nowhere he'd rather be.