Schools are faced with increasing pressures from declining test scores and outcry from the public to improve the educational system. Efforts to reform the system have varied widely and produced inconsistent results. One school took a different approach by embracing the reform efforts through a systematic change process, led by a transformational…

The author reports on the largest-ever federal investment in fixing low-achieving schools that is now flowing to states, raising the pressure on district leaders to make tough--and quick--decisions about firing principals, replacing teachers, or shutting down schools entirely. Since March, the U.S. Department of Education has been sending states…

Over the past two decades, community organizing has emerged as an effective force for school improvement. In the context of shrinking education funding, stubborn opportunity and achievement gaps between low-income and wealthy children and between children of color and White children, and polarizing debate on school reform, community organizing…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) focused national attention on improving schools so that all students reach academic proficiency by 2014. In the 2006-2007 school year, about 4,500 of the 54,000 Title I schools failed to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) for 4 or more years. Schools that miss AYP for 4 years are identified for…