A radical question on rescuing our education system and the high-stakes competition to answer it.

We first met Harvard economist Roland Fryer two years ago, when we showcased his provocative work on race in our 2005 Best and Brightest issue ("Roland Fryer's Big Ideas").

Earlier this year, Fryer had another big idea. In June, he took on a pro bono, all-consuming job as chief equality officer for the New York City Department of Education. His task: to raise the quality of the city's poorly performing, generally minority-dominated schools to the levels seen in more affluent, generally whiter neighborhoods. His idea: Turn educational achievement into a brand and market it to minority students as successfully as sneaker companies, video-game makers, and hip-hop clothing labels have marketed their stuff.

Fryer was, in part, inspired by the innovative work of marketing genius David Droga (a 2006 Best and Brightest honoree). Droga's Tap Project, launched in last year's Best and Brightest issue and supported by Esquire, turned ordinary tap water into a marketable commodity and launched a radical new charitable venture. Last March 22 (World Water Day), New York restaurant-goers were asked to pay a dollar for their normally complimentary glasses of water. And through that simple request, Tap raised more than $100,000 mostly in one night for UNICEF's clean-water initiatives. Fryer figured something similar could be done for promoting classroom success. In July, he approached us for help in getting the project off the ground.

Droga5's proposal is called the Million Phone, after the approximately one million students in the city's public schools. In a bit of marketing judo (Droga's term), it aims to make education cool by turning something that's cool already -- a cell phone -- into a tool for education. Outside of school hours, the phone does everything kids want: sends texts, takes pictures, and yeah, makes calls. During school, those functions are blocked (except emergency calls). Instead, the phone acts like what it really is: a minicomputer. It carries class schedules, lecture notes, calculators, digital encyclopedias, and other educational materials; it can tap into other resources through the school's own computer network. Every kid would get one, but here's the incentive part: the better a kid's grades, the more calling minutes and other bonus functions he or she will earn.

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