Chester school thrives with focus on the arts

John Alston is an avid cyclist. With a tailwind, he can pedal from Chester to Swarthmore - just over two miles - in about six minutes. That's how close the two communities are. In most other respects, they are far apart. Swarthmore is mostly white and rich. Chester is mostly black and poor.

Alston, an associate professor of music at Swarthmore College, is well aware of the difference.

"There's no way to justify the disparity of opportunity between two communities that are so geographically close," says Alston, 48, of Brookhaven. "Money shouldn't be the determining factor for something as basic as education."

Fifteen years ago, Alston decided to rectify the disparity in his own small way. He recruited children from Chester elementary schools and began the Chester Children's Chorus. His inspiration was his own experience. When he was 11, he joined the Newark Boys Chorus in North Jersey.

"It saved me," Alston says. "It allowed me to develop the skills to teach at a place like Swarthmore College."

The success of the chorus (it has grown from seven members to 104 today) spurred Alston to imagine doing more. The result: the Chester Upland School of the Arts, an experiment that could serve as a model for urban education not just in Chester but the nation.

The goal is to create a school that offers advantages to the disadvantaged, that is amply endowed with resources, and that employs intensive instruction in the arts to foster academic achievement and personal growth.

"This is a real opportunity to compete with children in the most affluent school districts in the United States," Aston says. "If they can learn to love Palestrina, they can learn to love Shakespeare. If they can learn to love Rossini, they can learn to love Tolstoy and Austen."

The Chester Upland School of the Arts (CUSA) is a public elementary school that has partnered with the Chester Fund for Education and the Arts, a nonprofit organization formed by Alston and others to support the school.

Last year, when CUSA opened, it went only as far as second grade. Last month, classes resumed with more than 240 pupils, from pre-K to third grade. As those children progress, the school will eventually teach students up to eighth grade, and ultimately, Alston hopes, through high school.