FANTASTIC VOYAGE

A Class Trip to the Capital Is a Spring Tradition. For the Kids of
Roma, It's A First.

Thirty-seven Texas eighth-graders in bright red T-shirts wait next to
the baggage carousel at Dulles International Airport. One girl is
crying because her ears refused to pop on the airplane, giving her a
splitting headache. Another girl's suitcase is missing. It's unclear
who is in charge of the snack bag. Nobody knows what the bus driver looks like.

"In your lines, in your pairs. Make sure you're with your buddy,"
yells history teacher Armando Barrera, whom everyone calls Mr. B. He
and three other history teachers calm the kids down and herd them onto the bus.

Another school trip to Washington, D.C., is underway, one of hundreds
that occur each spring. Most everyone sees the same monuments, tramps
the same halls of Congress. But what the kids really see, in their
mind's eye, depends on how far they've come. The students from Roma
Middle School have come from a barren border town mired in poverty.
In the fall, they will enter a high school that doesn't even bother
doing college counseling. They see an entire highway landscape that
is alien, as the bus rolls past the hotels, defense contractors and
tech firms along Route 276, past the gleaming towers of Tysons
Corner, onto I-66, past the mansions of McLean, past the condos of Clarendon.

"Here we come, guys, on the right!" Steve de Man says into the bus
microphone. He is 24 and landed in Roma last year on his first
assignment for Teach for America. The kids press against the window,
leaning over one another, crossing the aisle for a better view: There
it is, reaching 555 feet into the sky, their first glimpse of their
nation's capital, the Washington Monument. Their disposable cameras
start flashing.

Later, after the sun has set, the kids are standing on the steps of
the Lincoln Memorial.

"This is the spot where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his 'I have a
dream' speech," de Man says.

"Can we stand on it?" asks his most inquisitive student, Reynaldo Sandoval.

"Of course," de Man answers. "Everybody come here."

The kids gather around. "Let us not wallow in the valley of despair,"
King said here. "In spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the
moment, I still have a dream." Imagine a crowd of a million
stretching across the Mall, de Man tells them. Some try to picture
it. Some look at the Monument stretching toward the sky. Some look at
the Monument reflecting toward their feet. Most have never been
outside the Rio Grande Valley, and they find it impossible to look away.

"It's so great, it's so beautiful," Jaime Rodriguez murmurs. "At
least compared to where I come from." Few Roads Lead to Roma

Roma, Tex., their home, is a town of 9,000 on the banks of the Rio
Grande. Founded by Spaniards in 1765, it takes its name from the
seven hills rising up from the river, just like Rome's. Once it was a
prosperous herding village; today the commodity driving the economy
is illegal drugs.

When the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, Roma found itself
straddling two countries. Half the city became Roma, Tex.; the other
half became Miguel Aleman, in Tamaulipas, Mexico. But its identity
has remained Mexican -- today the population is 98.5 percent
Hispanic. Schools teach in English, but students learn it to varying
degrees because most speak Spanish among themselves and at home.

According to their teachers, many of the students arrive in middle
school with only a vague understanding that Texas and Tamaulipas are
different states, let alone in different countries. Asked to describe
their town today, the eighth-graders reach for the classic film "Viva
Zapata!" In 1951, Roma looked enough like a rough Mexican town of the
early 1900s that the story of Emiliano Zapata's rebellion against the
corrupt regime of Mexican President Porfirio Diaz was made there.

Not much has changed, say the students. Roma, nearly six hours south
of San Antonio, remains one of the poorest places in America. Its per
capita income is around $7,000, less than a fifth of the national
average. Year after year, fewer than half of its high school freshmen
go on to graduate.

This is just the sort of stubborn sociology that Teach for America
tries to change. The highly competitive and popular program gives
recent college graduates eight weeks of intensive training, then
sends them, eager and idealistic, into the worst urban and rural
schools in the country. Teaching history at Roma Middle School, along
with de Man, are first-year TFA teachers Audrey Southern and Liz
McKenna. Only Barrera, 33, is a homegrown teacher.

"I love the energy and commitment that they have," Barrera says of
the transplants. "They challenge the kids, have high expectations. I
saw the effect firsthand and it's just pushed me to do more and
more." When the TFA teachers made their ambitious proposal -- five
days in Washington will inspire these kids -- Barrera was on board
immediately, even if it was going to cost $1,090 per student.

The teachers laid out the rules: Money is not an issue. If you are
passing all your classes, have no suspensions and help fund-raise,
you get to go. Most families needed financial aid; some could afford
next to nothing. Beginning last fall, students, teachers and parents
sold raffle tickets, worked concession stands at events, held bingo
nights. The TFA teachers got out address books padded after four
years at expensive private colleges and sent pleas across the country.

In four months, they raised $25,000. By the time they finally pulled
on their "From the Border to the Capital" T-shirts, the teachers and
students agreed they had never worked so hard for anything.

The Most Supreme Court

The stunner comes on Day 2, after Arlington National Cemetery, more
monuments and Mount Vernon. All day, the teachers have been yakking
about the evening outing.

"The Department of Agriculture is one of the coolest places in
Washington," de Man assures the kids, who are too polite to be openly
skeptical. They get off the bus, in their lines, in their pairs, and
wait patiently for their "USDA security passes." They glance at
posters of Washington Wizard Gilbert Arenas and Georgetown
University's Roy Hibbert in the windows behind them. The USDA is
right next to Verizon Center, the teachers tell them.

But the passes say . . . Wizards vs. Celtics! A ripple of confusion
spreads through the students. They never knew the last couple of iPod
raffles were raising money for a surprise that was not exactly a
social studies lesson. The seats are in nosebleed territory, but the
kids don't care. Barrera tells a Wizards official how far they've
come, and he moves the whole group to 15 rows from the court.

"What a trip. First time I come to a basketball game, first time I
ride an airplane," says Jaime Rodriguez. "I should have known. We
were so tired and we were gonna go listen to a speech at the
Department of Agriculture? Doesn't work for me."

Even as he watches the game, intent on getting a photo of a slam-dunk
on his disposable camera, Jaime talks about Day 3. Jaime loves cars
and thinks he'd like to be an engineer one day in the auto industry.
That would mean college; he knows that. He would be the first in his
family. His dad is a jockey and his mom a postal worker.

In the morning, the kids are going to visit de Man's alma mater,
Georgetown University. Jaime has no idea what to expect. He's never
been to a college like this before. De Man is "crazy about
Georgetown. He makes it sound like" -- Jaime pauses to search for the
word -- "Heaven."

Georgetown

By the time the bus pulls up to Georgetown on Day 3, the kids are
chanting "Hoya Saxa" along with de Man, who leads them onto the
grassy quadrangle in front of Georgetown's iconic Healy clock tower.

"See this?" de Man tells the students inside, pointing out an ancient
mosaic. "It's the school seal. Don't step on the seal, because then
you won't graduate from Georgetown." The kids take this superstition
seriously. They all step carefully around the seal.

Here's where George Washington addressed the student body in 1797.
Here's the dorm where Bill Clinton lived as a freshman. Here's what
it's like to be a student -- people from all over the country on your
floor, hundreds of clubs to join, tunnels under the campus where
Georgetown students try to mimic the secret societies of the Ivy
League, more classes than you can imagine, shared showers you need
sandals to use.

"Ewww!" the kids giggle.

"Don't worry," Barrera says. "If you go to Georgetown, I'll buy the
sandals for you."

The kids pepper a trio of current students with questions.

"How old were you when you left home?"

"Was it hard to leave your family?"

"Do you need AP classes to get in here?"

"Is your family proud?"

At a souvenir shop, Jaime spends $40 on a Georgetown sweat shirt for
his niece and a Georgetown hat for his cousin.

"It's a lot of money, but I think it's worth it," he says. "My family
have never been to Washington. And they probably never will."

For himself, he buys a D.C. license plate bearing a single word,
Georgetown. It's emblematic of his love of cars and his hopes. "I
actually like Georgetown," Jaime says. "I think I might go there."

Driving the Truck

"We'll be happy," Barrera says, "as long as they go to any
university." As a Roma native, one of the fewer than 500 the U.S.
Census counts with college degrees in the town, he knows the odds are
stacked against his students.

"It's a vicious cycle," he says. "Kids dropping out. Getting married
too young. We have an eighth-grader who has two kids already. And her
mom graduated high school with me in 1990. Some eighth-graders are
reading at a third-grade level. There's no need to learn English --
nobody reads for pleasure. . . . I know how hard it is. Temptation is
there. The road less traveled is the one that goes to university.
We're trying to open their eyes to that."

So there is this trip, and there is Las Alitas, a chicken wing joint
and popular hangout for middle- and high-schoolers that Barrera and
his wife opened back in Roma. There, the history teacher tries to
talk kids into staying in school, instead of dropping out the day
they turn 16, which is Texas's legal limit. In the absence of college
counseling at the high school, he serves chicken wings with a side of
SAT prep books. He buys them out of his own pocket.

Despite his commitment, Barrera doesn't know whether he can stay in
his home town. The older of his two children starts kindergarten next
fall. "Do I want my son to grow up with the limited opportunities in
Roma?" he asks. "I don't know."

His town and its sister city in Mexico, Miguel Aleman, are overrun
with drugs. In October 2005, three local policemen there were
arrested for drug smuggling. Everybody knows about Los Zetas, the
paramilitary drug gang; nobody talks about it, for fear of being
kidnapped or murdered.

In a world with few options, the drug trade is almost too tempting to
resist. The children amid the flowering trees and well-kept statuary
of official Washington are two years from getting their driver's
licenses. Maybe they will get a part-time job at Roma's Burger King
or Pizza Hut, but more likely someone will give them a chance to
drive the truck.

What's in the truck?

Don't ask.

But someone can get paid $5,000 to drive it from Roma to Corpus
Christi or San Antonio. Maybe $15,000 for getting it across the
border from Mexico.

Everyone knows Los Zetas pay better than the government or the
handful of fast-food joints in town.

Official Visit

So: Show the kids the beauty of Washington, show them how fun it is,
show them people who have made it.

From his corner office in the Federal Triangle, Assistant Secretary
of Commerce Israel Hernandez has an expansive view of the Washington
Monument. A picture on the wall shows Hernandez with the Bush twins
- -- Jenna and Barbara -- watching the results come in from Ohio in
2004. More than a decade ago, in Austin, he carried bags and anything
else a gubernatorial candidate named George W. Bush needed him to do,
became a protege of Karl Rove, and here he is.

Hernandez, 35, tells the kids from Roma about his childhood back in
Eagle Pass, where his father worked the rodeo circuit and his mother
worked for Customs. He tells them how the University of Texas changed
his life and put him on course.

More rapid questions:

"How long did you go to school?"

"Was it hard to leave home?"

"Was it expensive?"

"How much do you work?"

"Do you miss your family?"

"Do you like Washington?"

The questions are always like this, as the eighth-graders meet others
from the Rio Grande Valley, at the liberal Center for American
Progress and at the Republican National Committee. The kids from Roma
don't ask what to do about the porous border, where the Teach for
America instructors first were shocked and then grew used to seeing
people swimming across the river. The students don't buttonhole their
representatives to improve their schools. They want to know what it
takes to get to Washington.

"Life is about moments," Hernandez tells them, when he poses for a
photo with them outside the Commerce Department building. "Sometimes
you have good moments, sometimes you have bad moments. Sometimes you
can't control others' actions -- but you can control how you conduct
yourselves."

One afternoon in the Museum of American History, after meeting all
these people, Reynaldo Sandoval pipes up.

"Mr. de Man, can I ask you something?" He's conflicted. The students
don't have to leave Roma to be successful, Hernandez told them, but
Reynaldo thinks he wants to. He's only 14, but he sees: His father is
unemployed, his mother works in a nursing home. His older brother
works at Wal-Mart and lives at home. "Why would you leave here and
come to Roma?"

"I love Roma and I love Washington, too," says de Man, who was born
in Montreal and graduated from high school in Cincinnati. "This gives
me a chance to share this all with you."

"But sir, there's nothing in Roma," Monique Garza says.

"No," he corrects her. "You guys are in Roma."

A Note on the Mirror

It is the last night in Washington. There are pizza and soda in the
conference room of the hotel, a Best Western in Rockville. Sibonay
Lopez stands up with her cup, as if to make a toast.

"I want to say something to the teachers," she says. "Thank you for
making this the trip of a lifetime from Roma."

When Barrera makes a final sweep of the hallways at around 11:30, he
hears giggling and talking from several of the girls' rooms. He
settles them down. In the morning, one of the giggling rooms has left
a note taped to a mirror: "Thanks for cleaning our room. We really
appreciate it. We are sorry we made a mess! Please tell everyone at
the hotel, thank you! Sashelly, Jocelyn, Valerie and Lizette."

On their last night, the girls also made a pact -- to return to
Washington together after high school graduation -- maybe for college.

At the airport, a lot of the kids are in tears. Middle school is a
time of developmental turmoil, but field trips don't usually end with
crying. The months of fundraising, the anticipation, and then seeing
it all: the monuments and memorials, the Smithsonian, Georgetown, the
Wizards, the Capitol, the Constitution.

"I don't want to leave. I want to cry," Sibonay says.

"I can't believe we're going back to Roma," Alyssa Saldivar adds.
"It's just not going to be the same."