"R&D Alert" covers issues affecting schools in the Western Regional Educational Laboratory's four-state region--Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah--and throughout the United States. WestEd researchers and assistance providers have been focused on secondary education for many years. This issue of "R&D Alert" goes beyond describing the problem of high school reform to focusing on solutions that have emerged. The following articles are contained in this newsletter: (1) Making Room for Literacy in Secondary Schools; (2) Preparing Students for College; and (3) The New Landscape of Small Schools and Smaller Learning Communities. In "Making Room for Literacy in Secondary Schools," lessons are shared from two WestEd projects that help numerous districts bolster students' literacy skills at the secondary level. One of these projects--WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative--is one of only two programs nationally selected as a promising supplementary literacy program for ninth-grade students, and it is being studied further in an evaluation funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. On the challenge of better preparing students for postsecondary education, findings are highlighted from a recent WestEd evaluation of an initiative to improve the college prospects of traditionally underserved students. An article on alternatives to traditionally large high schools draws on two WestEd sources--a research study and a service project.