Metro Early College High School just passed a big important test. The first students who took the plunge of leaving the halls of their own high schools to become live guinea pigs in Ohio's first STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) school have just graduated! Colleges, including OSU (53 students accepted to the main campus), Brown University, Yale, MIT, Cornell and other prestigious schools have scooped up all the Metro graduates with offers of more than $3.6 million in scholarships.

Metro is run by the Educational Council, a confederation of the 16 public school districts in Franklin County. Students who attend Metro are concurrently enrolled in their home district. Metro was backed by OSU and Battelle to offer the intimacy and academic levels of a small private school with the accessibility of a public school. But unlike a private school, it's not closed to just elite students. Students with adequate basic skills from the 16 schools can apply for admission by submitting an essay and going through a personal interview. Students who qualify are then chosen by lottery.

So successful is Metro that it is the springboard for an expanding system of STEM schools throughout Ohio.

Metro Principal Marcy Raymond is smiling and eagerly assisting other schools to adopt the Metro model. Her thought is that if every school is a "STEM" school, then they all can be successful, too.