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¡Mejor no hay! Hispanic kids and robotics competition

Want proof that we really are fans of public schools?  Blogosphere denizens may remember this story about a group of Latino immigrant kids from Phoenix’s Carl Hayden High School that creamed a bunch of schools (including MIT and Cambridge) in an underwater robotics competition.  The school has continued to sponsor a team, and the Arizona Republic has the latest:

For these teens, there’s much more at stake in learning about engineering and building robots than just winning. The 2004 win transformed their school and changed the course of their lives.

The team has grown from a dozen kids to 50, attracting students from across campus and in different areas of study. It operates like a little corporation promoting a stand-out athletic team, with some students creating brochures, videotaping practice runs or raising money, while others program, design and build robots. Even the cheerleaders come to matches.

"We used to be known as an underperforming school," said Annalisa Regalado, 17. "Now we’re known as the robot school."

And now every senior on the robotics team at Carl Hayden in the past three years – about 25, so far – has gone into the military or college, most on full scholarships. All six of this year’s seniors are going to college on full scholarships.

Understand, Hayden High School is in west Phoenix–the barrio, in the biggest sense of the word.  A bunch of inner-city immigrant kids manage to outrun and outsmart the best engineering schools around, doing more with less than any other school in the nation.  Sort of like Rocket Boys crossed with Stand and Deliver for the new millennium.