Editor's note: Steve Perry is the founder and principal of the Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, Connecticut, and author of "Man Up!: Nobody is Coming to Save Us," which offers solutions to problems in the black community.



Steve Perry says a question from a parent started his journey to creating a top-performing school.



HARTFORD, Connecticut (CNN) -- "Why do only rich kids get good schools?"



I was the founder and director of a part-time out-of-school college preparatory program.



The questioner was a parent; herself a victim of a dulled urban education. The statement was more of an indictment than question, and I had no answer. "Well, why can't this program be a school," she offered.



The program sent 100 percent of our graduates to college. We served poor students who were the first generation in their families to attend college. We provided college preparation through a six-week summer program, after-school tutoring and in-school academic advising.



That single mother's question came at the end of the summer program. This was always a tough time. As the kids said goodbye to their friends and the program's high expectations, we all looked at the school year with great trepidation.



We knew that the students were returning to failed schools with very low expectations -- and results to match. Like that mom, I too wondered why wealth and whiteness are too often linked to quality education. Her question connected to a discussion that I'd been having with some colleagues during the summer program.



All of the teachers in that program worked in failed urban schools. Many had tried to reform traditional urban schools. They'd started formal and informal programs, identified groups of kids and connected to parents. Each had had some success with some kids, but the conditions that led to the need to do something went unchanged.



The question was raised at the end of our 2002 summer program. My first instinct was to begin down the path of opening an all-male minority charter school. In Connecticut, charter schools are publicly funded and privately run, with no teachers' unions, no school board influence and no centralized curriculum. These were the pluses. There was only one minus: There was no money. The charter idea was dead as soon as it began.



I assembled an all -black team. My plan was to put black educators together, and we would show 'em. Brothers and sisters were gonna open a successful charter school. Black educators serving black kids. This was my first major mistake.



Talent and commitment have no color. Kids don't care what color their teachers are, and I shouldn't have either. After almost a year of stops and starts with a team that was not effectively assembled, I realized that I failed in my judgment because I did not keep my eye on the goal, which was to build a school that sent kids to college regardless of their hue or economic status. I have never made that mistake again.



I doubled back and went into the schools and found the teachers who stayed the latest and arrived the earliest. I looked for the most ambitious teachers who had a reputation of being the most talented, and we started a second team.



I am a social worker. I knew that I could run an organization, but wasn't sure about developing curriculum. When I created Team 2, my first pick was the best teacher I could find. Rich Beganski is the perfect complement, or opposite, of who I am. He's meticulous and lives and breathes curriculum. He is an operations genius. He was a longtime assistant coach who never wanted to be coach. I've never been an assistant and don't want to be one.



Our team was composed of a white guy, a Latina, a black woman and a black man bound by a single commitment: to send kids to college.



In 2003-04, Connecticut was settling a desegregation case. A component of the agreement was to open eight magnet schools
What does his school send all graduates to? Who is Steve Perry? What kind of education do children from low income families get? What started process of building a quality school
college. Hartford, Connecticut, and author of "Man Up!: Nobody is Coming to Save Us," dulled urban a question from a parent
question: What does his school send all graduates to?, answer: college. | question: Who is Steve Perry?, answer: Hartford, Connecticut, and author of "Man Up!: Nobody is Coming to Save Us," | question: What kind of education do children from low income families get?, answer: dulled urban | question: What started process of building a quality school, answer: a question from a parent