The Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering, Tennessee’s first charter school, has both exemplified and embodied that which the entire charter school community is all about—educating our children, by using innovative and effective school models, to help them reach college. This May, MASE will graduate 100% of its senior class.

There are 89 students that comprise the senior class of 2009. This was the first class to walk through MASE’s doors when it opened in fall 2003. Now this class will be the first to walk out of MASE, diplomas in hand, to greet the world. Indeed 63 of the 89 students have applied to college, many of them firs...