Math teacher Zbigniew Zielina was puzzled by the silence. It was early in the school year, he was about to begin his algebra class, and the Santa Paula High School instructor detected none of the loud talk and scraping chairs that usually marked his students' entrance. He turned to investigate. "I see 30 kids quietly copying the questions," he recalls. "They were ready to work. In all my years, I have never seen this."
Until last September, no one in Santa Paula, Calif., had. That's when the tiny (pop: 27,000) farm community, about 65 miles northwest of Los Angeles, decided...
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