Thanks to a black minister and a retired marine, roughly 450 students in St. Louis are attending private schools financed by public dollars this fall - without vouchers. Determined to do something about the number of kids they encountered who couldn't read or write, Bishop Laurence Wooten and Marine Lt. Col. Tim Daniels set out to create charter schools that would give kids a tuition-free alternative to their dismal public schools. Unable to secure charters from a sponsoring organization, the two hit upon the idea of financing their schools by cobbling together money from before- and after-school programs, federal day-care money, Medicaid and school lunch programs. Today, two of the four planned St. Louis Academies - which feature values-based, but not religious, instruction in a back-to-basics curriculum - are up and running. A relentless determination to succeed - epitomized by the school motto "There is no excuse for failure" - supplements the schools' shoestring budget. For more about these schools, see "Tuition-free, back-to-basics, inner-city private schools," by King Kaufman, Salon.com, October 29, 2001.
