Good news in West Philly

The media have covered a lot of bad news lately. War. Natural disasters. A hunting accident that seems more tragic than funny in retrospect. Even this page has become gloomy, albeit on a smaller scale. Last Thursday, Jeff Shafer wrote a column about the low attendance rates at Philadelphia high schools. The following day, I wrote about how Penn Transit buses burn cancer-causing fuels.

All in all, it was almost enough to make one despair of Philly's future. So this past week, I went in search of the other side of the coin -- the feel-good story. What I found may provide hope for both Penn Transit and Philly high schools.

The story begins at 221 S. Hanson St., just west of Walnut and 48th streets. There, 10 high school students are working on a gorgeous convertible in the auto shop long after the end of classes.

This sports car has it all: the same horsepower as a 2006 Nissan Z, with more than twice that vehicle's gas mileage. It's an electric-biodiesel hybrid -- and, by the way, it won its field in the 2005 Tour de Sol, a prestigious competition for eco-friendly vehicles that attracts entries from damn good engineers.

"When they first applied, I didn't know anything about them or whether they were under-funded," said competition director Nancy Hazard in regard to the Philly students' 2002 entry. "Their project was so ambitious." That year, the students also won the title with an electric Saturn.

So who are these two-time champion, eco-sports car-building students?

On one level, they're your average inner-city teens from broken homes and unsafe streets. One of their teachers said that "they're afraid of the neighborhoods they live in." But they've spent less time in dangerous neighborhoods since enrolling in West Philadelphia High School's Automotive Academy.

The academy is a 150-student public vocational school that is technically part of West Philly High. But only technically. The academy runs its own programs in its own building with its own curriculum. Students have to apply to be in the academy, which teaches English, math and science through the world of cars. They learn how to calculate gear ratios and write essays about the national oil addiction.

And the program is working. academy students have won gold medals in Philly's cutthroat science fair for all sorts of creations, including aerodynamic car-body panels. Students have won the Tour de Sol -- a car race featuring environmentally friendly cars -- against the odds, beating out Swarthmore College, among others, last year.

But, more importantly than building cars, students are building futures. Fifty percent of academy students go on to four-year colleges, while 30 percent of other Philly high school students do.

And the academy students who don't attend college are still prepared for a career. Many of them attend a technical school to shore up their automotive skills -- skills that are in demand. Nationwide, there is a shortage of 60,000 new auto technicians, according to a recent article in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

And technicians can make decent money these days, according to academy director Simon Hauger.

"At the Ardmore Volkswagen dealership, technicians make $60,000 per year," he said. "You can't outsource these jobs."

So perhaps the public school system isn't a lost cause. Shafer's column last week reported that schools are starting to pay students for good attendance because schools can't convince students to come otherwise. But at the academy, 90 percent of students attend every day without any monetary incentive.

The incentive is the work itself. The students enjoy learning there because learning means creating, building and doing. It's called project-based education, and for kids who rarely see results in downtrodden communities, it's invigorating.

"This program keeps kids off the street," one academy senior told the Philadelphia Daily News last May when the city tried to cut the program in favor of a school for students with disciplinary problems.

That move would have been a Band-Aid, whereas the academy's project-based curriculum may be a solution. Thankfully, the city backed off, and now, the academy is gearing up for the 2006 Tour de Sol in Saratoga, N.Y.

The academy is a feel-good story that also presents some hope.

The city should look into forming other small academies in other subjects, so that students with a love of learning -- be it automotive or not -- don't fall by the wayside in overcrowded classes with underqualified teachers. As for Penn Transit, well, its buses could run on the same soybean-based fuel that powers the academy's hybrid sports car. It's time Penn learned from the academy students.

As for the media? CBS Evening News is running a piece at 6:30 p.m. about some local kids who build cars or something. For once, it sounds like some good news.

Gabriel Oppenheim is a College freshman from Scarsdale, N.Y. Opp-Ed appears on Fridays.

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