In 1997, the state of California labeled Markham Middle School as low-performing. Located in the Watts neighborhood of Southeastern Los Angeles, Markham is stuffed with over 1,500 students in just three grades, sixth-eighth. Roughly 70 percent of the students are Hispanic, and 30 percent are black. Eighty-two percent are poor. That year, the average Markham student scored at the 16th percentile in math and 12th percentile in reading. Over the next 11 years, the state and then the federal government under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) enacted a series of reforms designed to turn Markham and other schools like it around. Yet, at the end of all that, Markham Middle School was still open for business, still serving low-income and minority students, and still low-performing. Relatively little attention has gone to fixing schools that, like Markham Middle, look bad no matter what method of evaluation is used to label them. The biggest challenge in public education is no longer determining which schools need help. It's determining how to help them, and when to decide that no amount of help will do. Policy changes will be needed at each level of government--federal, state, and local--if the immense challenge of helping students in the nation's worst schools is to be met. (Contains 2 tables, 2 figures and 23 endnotes.)