In early 2001, two businessmen in Lancaster, Calif., were approached by a local schoolteacher who asked if they could find investors to create a charter school that would help at-risk kids and keep them from dropping out. As savvy business leaders, they understood the correlation between dropouts and crime, which was on the increase in Lancaster. So, despite not knowing much about charter schools, founders Dante Simi and Jeff Brown put together a group of investors and launched the first Learn4Life school.