America's education system is based on the assumption that barring illness or an extraordinary event, students are in class every weekday. So strong is this assumption that it is not even measured. It is the rare state education department, school district, or principal that can tell one how many students have missed 10% or more of the school year…

Proposals for school reform often focus on large and sometimes controversial systemic changes, such as charter schools, accountability standards, and changes to the way teachers are hired, fired, and compensated. Although these reforms may offer great opportunity to improve student outcomes, they may also be costly, face substantial implementation…

In 2005, the Hildago (Texas) Independent School District, in partnership with the University of Texas-Pan American, the University of Texas System, the Communities Foundation of Texas/Texas High School Project, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, promised that all of its students would earn college credits before graduating from high…

Over the past 10 years, the author has spent time in hundreds of high schools reviewing data; observing classes; learning about interventions and whole-school reforms; and speaking with principals, teachers, counselors, and students. She has also been a district leader in New York City responsible for high school reform that has achieved promising…

Policy makers at the state and national level would like local school boards to be active participants in creating schools where all students have high-quality learning opportunities. While numerous groups endeavor to make schools a better place for kids, adult leaders rarely seek input on how to do this from their most important stakeholders and…

After the author was named principal of Osbourn Park Senior High School almost 10 years ago, he met with his new boss, the area associate superintendent. The author asked him his opinion of Osbourn Park. His reply was direct: "This school has never really accomplished anything. People look at it as mediocre--as a school that has never reached its…

For decades, both state and national officials have complained that U.S. school children are not learning as much as they should, and these critics typically presuppose that the problem is school based. They are, in a sense, fixating on one element of a complex system, while ignoring the fact that the problem might be caused by external factors.…

Today's career and tech programs blur the lines between college and career prep, undoing traditional high school tracking. The technology used in jobs now requires higher-level skills of those responsible for the work than ever before, and due to this fact and to changes in the way these programs are implemented, enrollment in the area of career…

In this article, the author focuses on the Washington, D.C. school system and Antonio, a child victim of violence, to discuss the background problems that affect the school performance of children from troubled neighborhoods. People who work in schools know that children--even kindergarten and preschool children--don't come to them as blank slates…

For the past four years, the Center on Education Policy (CEP), an independent nonprofit research and advocacy organization, has been conducting a comprehensive and continuous review of NCLB, producing the annual reports contained in the series "From the Capital to the Classroom" as well as numerous papers on specific issues related to…