Bachilleratos Populares (henceforth BPs) are free and self-managed high schools by grassroots social organizations after the Argentine crisis of 2001 to provide an option for youth and adults to finish their secondary education as a response to the gap the neoliberal reform left in this educational modality during the 1990s. After some BPs…

A Bay Area charter high school, d.tech develops "innovation-ready" students by combining content knowledge with the design thinking process while fostering a sense of autonomy and purpose. The academic model is grounded in self-paced learning through a flex schedule, high standards, and design thinking through a four-year design…

This article extends existing research on school effectiveness by focusing on identifying the combination of programs, practices, processes, and policies that explain why some high schools in a large urban district are effective at serving low-income students, minority students, and English language learners. Using a mixed methods study of high…

The largest charter organization in Los Angeles serving more than 11,000 low-income students aims to prove it is possible to educate students at high levels across an entire system of schools. Alliance College-Ready Public Schools developed the PACE blended learning model, launched at the new Baxter High School, to more effectively prepare its…

The authors report on a yearlong investigation into similar schools that performed well and less well in the same district. They found that the higher-performing schools engaged in an intentional set of systemic practices that encourage Personalization for Academic and Social Learning (PASL) in one district and integrated structures of academic…

Three decades of reform aimed at improving disadvantaged student achievement have not substantially narrowed achievement and graduation gaps. This article reviews the research around eight essential components of effective high schools emerging from a review of the effective schools and high school reform literature, and provides a framework for…

Background/Context: Mixed methods research conveys multiple advantages to the study of complex phenomena and large organizations or systems. The benefits are derived from drawing on the strengths of qualitative methods to answer questions about how and why a phenomenon occurs and those of quantitative methods to examine how often a phenomenon…

Research investigating the level of student achievement in two demographically comparable urban high schools was examined as to the presence of or the absence of the Correlates of Effective Schools. The purpose of the study was to determine: Do the Correlates of an Effective School as identified by Lezotte distinguish a higher achieving high…

Three decades of reform aimed at improving disadvantaged student achievement have not substantially narrowed achievement and graduation gaps. This article reviews the research around eight essential components of effective high schools emerging from a review of the effective schools and high school reform literature, and provides a framework for…

This article describes a ten-year effort led by youth, community organizers, and a range of partners that resulted in two new, successful high schools and showed the power of grassroots mobilization for social justice. Since opening in 2009 and 2010 respectively, Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez High School for College and Career Preparation and…

This paper reports on evidence from five school principals regarding leadership practices that work in multiple deprived contexts. The South African educational landscape is complex, often described as a cocktail of first and third world institutions. Looking at the schooling system on a continuum, on the one end there are first class schools…

This article explores Kettle Moraine High School's experience of participating in the PISA-based test, known in the U.S. as the OECD Test for Schools. The high school is located on the western edge of Milwaukee. Starting with a trial run in 2012 that involved more than 100 U.S. schools, the OECD Test for Schools has been offered to individual…

Research finds that small high schools deliver better outcomes than large high schools for urban students. An important outstanding question is whether this better performance is gained at the expense of losses elsewhere: Does small school reform lift the whole district? We explore New York City's small high school reform in which hundreds of new…

This article reviews findings from the authors' studies of recovery high schools (RHS), including a 1995 program evaluation of a school in New Mexico (Moberg & Thaler, 1995), a 2006-09 descriptive study of 17 recovery high schools (Moberg & Finch, 2008), and presents early findings from a current study of the effectiveness of recovery high…

For a century, most students have advanced from grade to grade based on the number of days they spend in class, but in New Hampshire, schools have moved away from "seat time" and toward "competency-based learning," which advances students when they have mastered course content. This report profiles how two high schools in New…