Seven schools located in and around an impoverished West Philadelphia community are highlighted. While all seven schools are representative of a movement toward the decentralization of authority, the involvement of people in their schools, and the humanization of the educational process, each is innovative in its own way. The authors first discuss the schools individually, reporting the facts and human dynamics of bringing these schools into existence. Seven people are then profiled whose unique qualities are reflected in one or more of the seven schools; and whose backgrounds, talents, and motivations illustrate the wide range of human potential involved in the creation of these schools. The authors, switching from the role of reporters to architects, then advocate a new attitude toward the architecture of inner-city schools -- one that responds to the realities of street life in the ghetto, low construction budgets, rising construction costs, and a deteriorated environment. They next discuss the development process (buying land and buildings, obtaining construction loans and mortgages, etc.) in terms of the seven schools, and conclude the presentation by offering general advice to those attempting to begin an alternative or to redirect a public school. (Photographs may reproduce poorly.) (Author/MLF)