Three years ago, Kevin Pineda—who came to the United States from Guatemala at age 6—was failing or struggling in nearly all his classes at Fairfax High School here. He was on the verge of following ...

Year 10 student Darcy Giang was proud of himself. He’d spent the past year knuckling down to improve his marks so he could study English Advanced for his HSC. His teacher noted he “had the potential ...