Former California Gov. Hiram Johnson's belief in citizen action is famous now that one of his creations -- the recall election -- is being used for the first time to put the state's chief executive on the hot seat.

So it was a fitting tribute to the long-ago statesman that his alma mater, Sacramento High School, also was the site this week of a historic display of citizen involvement that might help transform the face of public education in the Capital City.

The long-troubled school on the edge of downtown Sacramento was reopened Tuesday under the leadership of a private, nonprofit corporation headed by another alumni named Johnson -- former NBA basketball star Kevin Johnson.

The emotional day capped a 10-month struggle by Johnson, his St. HOPE Corp. and hundreds of students, parents and community activists to reinvent the campus as a charter school accountable to students and their families, and free of most state and local regulations.

The drive was backed by a narrow 4-3 majority of the city school board, which pushed courageously for the change despite bitter opposition from the teachers' union in a heavily Democratic union town. Lawsuits filed by the union to block the change are still pending, including one that seeks to threaten the board majority with jail time for contempt of court.

The union is upset because the charter school's teachers will not automatically be part of the district's collective bargaining unit. Although they are free to join a union if they wish, the teachers will begin with individual contracts with the school, which will hold them accountable for their performance and be free to reward them or let them go as the management of the school sees fit.

Like other high schools in Sacramento, the Sacramento High campus will be broken down into six smaller units of 300 or so students, each with a particular education emphasis. Opponents have complained that Johnson and Sacramento High are getting credit for implementing reforms that the traditional public schools are also pursuing.

But they miss the point. What's different at Sacramento High isn't just the structure of the school but the ethic -- a "no excuses" mind-set that seeks to hold everyone involved to the highest possible standards.

A state audit completed as the school was being turned over to Johnson's St. HOPE said the district's administration was responsible for many of Sacramento High's problems. Teachers at the former school cited the audit as proof that they weren't to blame for its maladies.

Fine. But the only way to get the district headquarters out of the picture was to create a charter school and reopen the place under new management. Johnson stepped forward to lead that effort. And his commitment has been infectious.

"We turned the corner when the parents and kids started advocating for themselves," said Margaret Fortune, who as superintendent of St. HOPE Public Schools has helped lead the effort. "That's what made this possible. It wasn't St. HOPE. It was that literally thousands of people over the summer said this is too big an opportunity to miss. They willed the school open."

They did more than will it. They attended school board meetings by the hundreds, rallied in triple-digit heat, and, as opening day approached, volunteered to help paint and clean the school to get it into shape for the students. Dozens of volunteers were there on Labor Day putting on the finishing touches.

That sort of enthusiasm, which would never be present for a district-run school, has also inspired the broader community to action. St. HOPE has raised more than $6 million from outside donors, including local real estate developers, the UC Davis Medical Center and the University of Pacific's McGeorge School of Law. The academic partners will also provide shoe leather in the form of professors and students who will work with Sacramento High's students and teachers in novel attempts to expose low-income, minority students to the potential of higher education and professional careers.

I asked a representative of one of the donors, UOP law school Dean Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, why her university was willing to join Johnson's effort while it had never been involved like this before.

"Kevin reached out and said, 'Can we work together?' " she said. "No one else reached out. No one else made that kind of appeal. In a word, it's leadership. Here is a person who stood up and said 'I am going to make a difference, and I am going to cause it to happen.' "

No excuses. Take charge of your own destiny. Believe in yourself. Those were the themes evident Tuesday. If Johnson and his allies can convert them from slogans to reality in the months ahead, they will have shown that citizens, working together and working for themselves, can accomplish what no one, no institution, could have done on their behalf.

Correction: In an Aug. 31 column on historian Kevin Starr, I understated the number of volumes he has written on California history. I should have said that Starr's "California Dream" series has reached six volumes.