A Community Solution

By Deborah Cohen

Many educators in schools with high mobility rates feel powerless to do anything but shuffle seats around and make do as best they can as children stream in and out. The social woes that keep students on the move--from inadequate housing to dysfunctional families--seem hopelessly beyond their control.

But for the past six years, David Schuler, a Rochester, N.Y., landlord, has been trying to prove that schools and communities can work together to stabilize neighborhoods.

"The key thing,'' he says, "is to create a desire...