Educational statistics and worldwide media have reported a gender gap in academic achievement, with boys falling behind girls with regard to grades, high school graduation, and college enrollment and retention. This mixed methods study involved interviews with educators and the examination of quantitative data to investigate this issue in a school…

The Hastings Alternative School Program (HASP), designed for at-risk students, operates within Hastings-on-Hudson (New York) High School's regular program. Students are given an external structure and set of expectations enforced by an accountability system stressing communication and student responsibility. Nearly half of all HASP students go on…

To create effective schools, principals must make learning and teaching their highest priority. Effective schools research shows that, when teachers expect students to learn, help them learn, and hold them accountable for learning, they learn and improve their academic performance. Learning expectancy phases are traced from 1837 to the present.…

Discusses 12 basic, instructionally relevant learning principles concerned with students' differing needs and capacities, motivated and rewarded learning behaviors, teacher expectations, student learning preferences, and the value of challenging learning opportunities. One way to increase the amount of available teaching time is to teach by…

Setting high standards will not cause excellent student performance. Standards must be set for the everyday work teachers expect of students. Work-design standards are needed to protect students from pointless teacher-generated work. Greater coherence and focus for learning will occur if secondary schools are designed backward from worthy tasks…

American students devote only about 20 percent of their waking hours to learning tasks. Academic effort in high school is generally not well signaled to colleges and employers. Educators can make studying pay off by offering school-based rewards, providing diplomas certifying various competencies, and challenging college-bound students with…

A late 1960s graduate of racially segregated school in Mississippi evaluates her high school's performance against Ron Edmonds's five school effectiveness correlates (strong instructional leadership; clear instructional mission; orderly, safe climate; high expectations; close monitoring with standardized tests). School passed only one; all…

To bring students up to internationally benchmarked standards, high schools must abandon the ineffective general curriculum and focus resources on a narrower, academic curriculum. Professional and vocational education should be provided in postsecondary settings after students receive certificates of initial mastery. A 12-point school redesign…

Two recent reports show girls' performance in math and verbal skills is lower than boys' and that the gap steadily increases during the high school years. Girls' self-esteem also erodes during late adolescence. An extensive study of small-town high schools disclosed glaring gender inequities and lack of principal awareness. Principals must…

Like other parents who phoned her at work, a dedicated associate commissioner of education grew increasingly frustrated with a system that failed to challenge her children. She enrolled them in a private alternative school that stressed community and viewed education as a privilege demanding great student effort. (MLH)

The National Association of Secondary School Principals and the American School Counselor Association concur that a school-counseling program's success requires capitalizing on counselors' training, expertise, and ability to deliver a program that contributes significantly to the school's mission and supports expectations of new standards and…

A survey of 417 high-achieving high schoolers, 103 young prison inmates, and 105 dropouts enrolled in a GED program disclosed significant differences between high-achieving and less-successful adolescents regarding family background, interactions with parents, religious versus material orientation, self-motivation, and interest in school…

Maine's gubernatorially appointed Commission on Secondary Education produced eight overarching observations and six core principles governing learning climate, teacher expectations, differentiated instruction, assessment, democratic engagement, and program coherency. This new vision challenges schools and communities to rethink how they assess,…