Intended to influence school districts that have the opportunity to build new schools, this document provides new designs for comprehensive high schools that would overcome the mismatch between school and life, the inequity of educational outcomes, and the lack of organizational effectiveness that plague many contemporary high schools. The designs…

A 2-year project to specify new designs for the comprehensive high school of the future identified the following important features: (1) a guaranteed set of learner outcomes closely linked to present and future life roles and responsibilities for all students; (2) learning applied to life situations, using authentic assessment; (3) multiple ways…