Small Learning Communities Meet School-to-Work: Whole-School Restructuring for Urban Comprehensive High Schools. Report No. 31

摘要

This report describes specific reform practices schools are implementing to realize the vision set forth in NASSP's Breaking Ranks, which calls for changes in curriculum, instruction, assessment, school organization, professional development, community partnerships, and leadership in American high schools. The first section reviews a general critique of public high schools articulated in the 1980s and describes the reforms practices that have emerged over the past decade in response to that critique. The second section offers examples of schools that have pulled together a number of those reforms into a comprehensive school restructuring effort, focusing on one school in depth. The third section identifies challenges schools can expect to encounter when implementing the set of reforms, drawing on the experience of several schools the author and a research team at CRESPAR have worked with since 1994 as part of the Talent Development High Schools project.