Case studies of two high schools that have been turned around from failing to successful show different ways in which failing high schools can be made to succeed. Both high schools concentrated on first helping incoming freshman, and both reforms were driven by data. They differed in staffing and the focus of their first year of reform.

The purpose of this study is to understand how a policy that provided college-prep coursework for low-skill students may affect instructional organization within schools, and how such effects on instructional organization may have unintended consequences on academic outcomes of high-skill students who were not targeted by the policy. The author…

The development of the junior high school as a distinct and separate unit of the public-school system is one of the most remarkable and striking chapters in the history of public education in the United States. From humble beginnings in a few scattered cities the movement has gathered momentum until hundreds of school systems have been profoundly…