Furman Brown has spent over a decade figuring out how to design a better school. As a first-year teacher in South Central Los Angeles in the early 1990s, he got a taste of what was wrong with the traditional public school model: It was not designed to serve students "or" teachers well. Convinced there was a better way to organize and…

DESCRIBED IS THE REORGANIZATION OF A FLORIDA HIGH SCHOOL FROM A GRADED TO A NONGRADED PHASED CURRICULUM DEVELOPED AROUND STUDENTS' ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS, RATHER THAN THEIR CHRONOLOGICAL AGES. CLASSROOM WORK ACCOMPANYING VARIOUS ACHIEVEMENT PHASES IS DESCRIBED. REMEDIAL WORK IS EMPHASIZED IN THE FIRST PHASE, BASIC SKILLS IN THE SECOND, AVERAGE LEVELS…

The Carnegie structure, involving seven-period days and nine different locations daily, is an ineffective system. The Copernican plan changes school scheduling by lengthening instructional periods for fewer and smaller classes. The system should improve teacher-student relationships, lighten workloads, and introduce innovative evaluation and…

The conference program included four alternative schools which are really unique in that each of the four schools operates with the expressed approval of the board of education or school committee in its particular community and each receives some portion of its support, both financial and moral, from the same board of education or school…