The current study builds on earlier leader succession research, focusing on a school where the "insider"--who was believed to be strong before being hired as the formal school leader--drew sharp criticism after assuming the principalship. Interviews with staff members who worked with the insider leader in her role as teacher and…

Only a quarter of the class of 2008 graduated from Alain Locke Senior High School in Los Angeles after four years. This was unsurprising since nearly 60 percent of the class had left Locke by the end of their sophomore year. A majority of Locke teachers--frustrated with the school's mediocrity--petitioned to allow charter management organization…

This article shows that an ethnically diverse student population leads to blurred ethnic and racial boundaries in high schools. Still, students in New York distinguish themselves much more along ethnic and racial lines than do London students. The evidence presented suggests that, in addition to national-level differences, traditional British…

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…

The latest available statistics for 1958-59 indicate there were 8,084 small schools and that they had enrolled in them 1,650,000 pupils. It is a matter of conjecture how much these figures will be reduced in the next 10 years, but there is considerable doubt that the reduction will be a truly significant one. In any event the current figures are…