Failed Milwaukee charter school offers lessons
Milwaukee College Prep likely to take over the Academy of Learning and Leadership's buildings
There's a concerted effort under way to improve life in the troubled north side neighborhood known as Lindsay Heights, with much of it modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone, where an array of services across every phase of childhood aims to make kids successful.
So here's a thought from Geoffrey Canada, the founder and leader of the New York-based effort:
During a visit to Madison last fall, Canada said that every year, he calls in a few teachers from charter schools that are part of the program. They are caring, hardworking people, he said. But their students haven't been achieving the levels of success the program demands.
He fires them. He can't settle for not succeeding.
Which brings us back to Lindsay Heights and the Academy of Learning and Leadership, an independent charter school that opened in 2003 with high hopes of sparking good things around its new building at N. 15th and W. Center streets.
Creating the school was a life ambition for Camille Mortimore, who had been a school principal and administrator in the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese. She wanted to build a school that would broaden