Six years ago 14 students entered the sixth grade at Grand Rapids Public School’s City High Middle to attend the brand new Center for Economicology, CFE. This innovative environmental school was started by the late Peter Wege with a curriculum based on his philosophy of balancing the needs of the economy with those of the ecology. This year those initial CFE students will graduate from Grand Rapids Public School, City High Middle, that U.S. News just named the number-one public high school in Michigan, 83rd in the nation.
The same year Wege launched the Center for Economicology, he also funded the incorporation of the International Baccalaureate program into the City High Middle School curriculum, another reason the Economicology School was ranked the top performing school in the state.
What The Wege Foundation is especially proud of in this announcement is that this public school has a culturally diverse population with forty percent of their students on free or reduced lunch programs. For the majority of the other top-ranked public schools, only zero-to-ten percent of their students qualify for free or reduced lunches.
In keeping with their economicology philosophy, the graduating class has decided they will do a “Zero Carbon Green Graduation” meaning they will wear recycled gowns and mortar boards in a rainbow of whatever colored caps and gowns they can find along with other sustainable attributes.
You can find the story in the link below.
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/05/12/michigan-high-schools-us-news-rankings/27198649/
Read more about the Center for Economicology – click here