Last Monday was the sort of lazy summer morning made for just two things: swimming and sleeping away the hours. Yet by 7:45 a.m., the Carver Heights Edison School in Goldsboro, N.C., was bustling. Students, toting backpacks full of fresh school supplies, filed past banners bidding WELCOME BACK and HAVE A GREAT YEAR. After a brief morning meeting, the classes settled down and eased right into the 90-minute reading lesson that starts each day. "I don't get nervous anymore for the first day of school," says fourth-grader Parish Brown. "I feel like I never really stop coming."
He hardly does. Parish's...