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Community Groups Looking to Run Phila. Schools

Philadelphia

Progress is difficult to find here among the boarded-up houses and abandoned businesses—the sad skeletons of once-vibrant communities.

Yet even as renovated homes and new strip malls signal small steps toward revitalization amid the disintegration, local leaders in Philadelphia say the public schools, long plagued by financial and academic woes, are the linchpin in reviving their neighborhoods.

"I know we can do better," said Marshall Mitchell, a native of the city and the founding director of the Overbrook Educational Development Corp. "We must do...