On this edition of In Black America, producer/host John L. Hanson Jr. speaks with Dr. Steve Perry, Founder and Principal of the Capital Preparatory Magnet School, located in Hartford, CT.
Perry is the most talked about innovative educator on the scene today, and he’s made a name for himself on television and speaking tours. He is the founder and principal of what U.S. News and World Report has cited as one of the top schools in the country, Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, Connecticut. Capital Prep has sent 100 percent of its predominantly low-income, minority, first generation high school graduates to four-year colleges every year since its first class graduated in 2006.
Born and reared in the housing projects of Middletown, Connecticut, Perry lives each day to breed and breathe change into the black community. The son of a Caucasian teenage mother, and an African American teenage father, the journey to be the change began early on. While his mother was organizing and chairing tenant association meetings and working towards creating a more livable and equitable set of circumstances for the residents consisting of mostly single mothers, at a young age, he made the decision to Say No to the drugs permeating his community.
Out of the heart of an impoverished community, Perry pursued and completed a Bachelors degree program in Political Science from the University of Rhode Island, a Masters program in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania and a Doctorate in Education from the University of Hartford. As a humanitarian with philanthropic aspirations, he returned to be director of a homeless shelter. Subsequently, he started a non-profit organization for low-income high school students aspiring to go to college.