CART Enrollment Climbs

Administrators at the Center for Advanced Research and Technology, the Valley's high-tech high school, overcame sagging enrollment this year. CART attracted 1,276 students this fall, its peak enrollment since opening in 2000, by boosting recruiting and adding psychology and computer game design classes.

The joint venture between Fresno and Clovis unified school districts and a consortium of technology companies prepares juniors and seniors for college or work at one of the sponsoring firms. Students spend half of each day at their regular high schools and half at the campus at Santa Ana and Clovis avenues in Clovis.

While it is encouraging to see the school attracting more students, it's hard to understand why more students have to be sold on the opportunities that the school provides.

Its cutting-edge approach to education, state-of-the-art technology and classes geared toward specific career clusters have the potential to provide more relevance than many find in a typical high school education.

In an age of growing dropout rates, it's too bad that's such a hard sell.