Milwaukee Lawyer Created School as a Pathway to College

Dani McClain:

At 27, Deanna Singh is determined to change the dismal statistic that only 5% of African-American adults in Milwaukee have a four-year college degree.

So determined that she has launched her own charter school, where her inaugural sixth-grade students already identify their class by the year they will graduate from college.

She aims to build a culture that refuses to accept what she witnessed years ago as a volunteer in Washington, D.C., schools - 11th- and 12th-graders who could barely read or write.

Both students and staff at her Milwaukee Renaissance Academy, 2212 N. 12th St., follow the succinct dictum of a mural in the school's stairwell: "No excuses!"

High expectations propelled Singh from her father's north side gas station - where she spent much of the first five years of her life - through Elmbrook Schools and on to the top-notch East Coast universities where she received her college and law degrees.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 5, 2008 9:11 AM
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