CHICAGO — For each boy, the new school offered an escape and a chance at a life that seemed beyond reach.

Krishaun Branch was getting D's, smoking reefer a lot, skipping school twice a week. His mother was too busy working to know what he was doing. He liked to hang out in the streets; having relatives in gangs was his armor.

When a young man came to tell his eighth-grade class about a new high school on Chicago's South Side, Krishaun wanted no part of it — until he heard students would have laptops. Suddenly, he was on board.

The rest of the story