What does it mean for students to be in a gifted program? While about 7% of students nationally participate in gifted programs, relatively little is known about the experiences of students in these programs or how they vary across districts. Combining administrative and survey data, we describe the structure of gifted programs across nearly 300…

North Queens Community High School serves approximately 200 students, 16-20 years old, as they strive to reach their personal and academic goals. All students at North Queens have previously been enrolled in high school elsewhere and are over-age and undercredited. Small class sizes, student-centered support, and an accelerated credit acquisition…

Landmark studies in the late 1970s and 1980s, including Tennessee's Project STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio), raised the nation's awareness that reduced class size does have a positive impact on students' academic achievement. This report provides a sketch of class-size reduction's history in a prefatory overview. Chapter 1 describes…

Distressed by their students' reading failure rate, teachers at two Georgia schools developed a parallel block-scheduling plan that allows for whole-class instruction, direct-instruction miniclasses, and enrichment labs for all students. Success depends on matching creative, resourceful teachers to the enrichment lab positions. Over the past two…

Henrico County (Virginia) Public Schools' alternative programs are becoming lifelines for troubled and/or underachieving students at all grade levels. Each program is well structured; stresses high behavior, achievement, and attendance standards; and has small classes, a caring ambience, supportive parents, and clear, consistent expectations for…

In 1996, a Winston-Salem principal closed a failing alternative school and developed a new program dedicated to helping at-risk kids succeed. The result was LEAP (Learning and Acceleration Program) Academy, a school that helps academically unstable middle-school students catch up to their peers by completing two years of academic course work in…