Ahead of the Curve

By Continued

Milwaukee

Just north of the city, between the Love Child Liquors shop and a shiny new playground, the 180 students at the Marva Collins Preparatory School of Wisconsin file into a timeworn building and climb three flights of stairs to their school on the top floor. When the children, kindergartners up to 5th graders, reach their classrooms, they line up and recite the school creed written by the pioneering Chicago educator for whom the school is named. The students, neatly dressed in their uniforms, shout in unison, their voices echoing off the artwork, poetry, and inspirational slogans that decorate their classroom.

A few miles to the east, next to a busy freeway and across from a clinic for the homeless, the 360 students at Messmer High School are settling in. In the hallways hang portraits of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and, at this...