Supported by its local school board and unimpeded by innovation-blocking rules and regulations, the Minnesota New Country Charter School launched a nationally recognized program featuring a course-free structure, individualized learning, and an emphasis on technology. This charter school has helped stimulate improvements in the other district…

Examination of school-improvement efforts at small-town New England high school shows limits of effective leadership, site-based management, and curricular innovations as improvement agents. Efforts are doomed without community consensus about reform goals and best ways to measure progress. Communities must synthesize information about academic,…