Classes in courage 

A Massachusetts school focuses on a character trait rarely spoken of in an academic context: courage.   

The graduation ceremony at Symphony Hall in Springfield, Mass., was a remarkable one. Balloons, roses, cheers, and smiles were everywhere as 75 high school students walked down the center aisle, arm in arm with parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, who ushered them one by one to the stage for perhaps the most important rite of passage of their lives thus far. An entire community beamed with pride, for on this third annual graduation of Springfield Renaissance School  — and for the third consecutive year — every single graduate had been accepted to college, and almost every student who had been a freshman at the school was on the stage as a senior.