If we still wonder why our children isn't learning, we might also ask some why well-educated and rich adults can't seem to learn either.  On that point, once again, George Will has found the root cause of educational success in the American inner city.  What might it be?  If you guessed, eliminate the teachers unions, you'd be right:

CRJHS can have its work program, its entirely college preparatory courses ("the old, dead white man's curriculum," says an English teacher cheerfully), its zero tolerance of disorder (from gang symbols down to chewing gum), its enforcement of decorum (couples dancing suggestively are told to "leave some space there for the Holy Spirit") and its requirement that every family pay something, if only as little as $25 a month. It can have all this because it is not shackled by bureaucracy or unions, as public schools are. 

Cristo Rey can have all of this because it is a private, Catholic, school that can pick and choose its students.  The ones not chosen end up somewhere else.  Where do they go?  Who will educate them?  I think it's clear at this point that if you asked George Will he'd say: who cares.