Private Schools

After hearing that Marva Collins was helping a private school get
started in Milwaukee, so many parents enrolled their children that the
new school has added two extra grade levels.

The Marva Collins Preparatory School of Wisconsin opened this
semester, and officials there hope to duplicate the educator's Westside
Preparatory School in Chicago. The 22-year-old Westside Prep's success
in educating urban children has won Ms. Collins widespread attention in
education circles, a feature on the CBS newsmagazine "60 Minutes," and
even a television movie.

Her simple formula of high expectations mixed with a curriculum of
basics has won her many fans.

"A lot of grandparents here had heard about her in the 1980s,
remembered her name, and said, 'Oh! I want to send my grandchild to
that school,'" said Robert Rauh, the principal of the new school.

After seeing the "60 Minutes" segment last year, a local couple,
along with a retired National Basketball Association star, contributed
$200,000 to help get the Milwaukee school off the ground. Ms. Collins
has lent her expertise to the project, along with her name. Organizers
have purchased her curriculum, and Westside Prep educators have trained
the school's staff of six.

"Our goal is to be as much of a clone as possible to what she's
doing in Chicago," Mr. Rauh said.

Planned originally to serve only kindergarten and 1st graders, the
new school opened late last month to 84 students in grades K-3, with
plans to add a grade every year until it becomes a full K-8 school.
Annual tuition is $4,500, but most of the parents are getting help from
Milwaukee's publicly funded voucher program or a local, privately
financed scholarship program.

A tiny new private high school in Dallas is seeking to fill its own
niche by catering to gay and lesbian students.

Co-founder Becky Thompson hopes the Walt Whitman Community School
will be a place that homosexual students can attend comfortably without
fear of harassment from their peers. In addition to a traditional
curriculum, including English, science, and mathematics, the school
emphasizes health and community service.

A half-dozen students enrolled this fall, including one heterosexual
student who had suffered taunts at another school because his mother is
a lesbian, Ms. Thompson said. "This is not about segregation," she
said. "We're looking for the kids that have dropped out or given up on
the system. They've tried to do their thing in the public schools and
want an alternative."