No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is not going away. In fact, it might not even undergo more than minor modifications before it comes up for reauthorization in a couple of years. The nomination of Margaret Spellings to replace Rod Paige as U.S. secretary of education foretells not only a single-minded focus on test-based accountability but also an…

Most educators deny that value judgments play a role in translating educational research into practice, but Ferrero urges acknowledgement our beliefs as the first step toward fulfilling our broader objectives for schooling in a democratic society. U.S. educators and citizens share certain broad beliefs about, and goals for, the education of…

Even before a single student had signed up for High Tech High School, the founders of the new charter school on San Diego Bay knew they did not want that first school to be their last. They wanted to affect more children. To that end, Larry G. Rosenstock, the founding principal of the highly regarded 5-year-old school, and other leaders of the…

The authors report on an evaluation of a comprehensive school reform initiative in one elementary school intended to provide meaningful and sustainable structure, substance, and support to the school's critical need to improve students' standardized test scores. Serious implementation and communication problems during the year of the evaluation…

Since its publication in 1983, "A Nation at Risk" has caused several waves and ripples of educational reform. This article puts that report in the context of earlier responses to perceived education crises. One such important response was from the private sector: the New American Schools Development Corporation (NAS). NAS attempted to create,…

This study was conducted in a lighthouse school with a long and successful history of restructuring. In this article we describe our (surprising) impressions of shadowing Jake, one of the highest achieving students in the school. We present a researcher's account of Jake's classroom experience over the first four periods of a single day and an…

"Reopening the school as a public charter school" is Option #1 on the list of NCLB's restructuring alternatives for failing schools. But this has not proved a popular choice. NCLB made the bold assumption that states and districts would voluntarily turn over the reins to charter operators. The authors of the legislation must have…

In this essay, Alexander Sidorkin offers a conceptual critique of the human capital theory that makes erroneous assumptions about the nature of student work and the private cost of schooling. Specifically, human capital theorists underestimate the private cost of schooling by taking low-level manual labor as the basis for estimating students'…

An explicit goal of the current reform movement in science education is to promote scientific literacy in the United States. One way to encourage scientific literacy is to help students develop a better understanding of science subject matter, that is, the declarative knowledge specifically associated with the physical, life, and earth sciences.…

Without question, the role of business, philanthropy, and other private sector interests in the day-to-day operation of public education has increased significantly over the past 25 years. Pundits of this phenomenon contend that a number of factors have contributed to the increase, such as (1) public dissatisfaction with the performance of school…

In the ongoing debate of the efficacy of top-down versus bottom-up strategies to improve school districts, top-down is clearly losing. Many district leaders are reluctant to champion improvement for fear of being labeled with the epithet "top-down leader," the unkindest cut of all. In this article, the author presents the change…

Critical race theory (CRT) has moved beyond legal scholarship to critique the ways in which "colorblind" laws and policies perpetuate existing racial inequalities in education policy. While criticisms of CRT have focused on the pessimism and lack of remedies presented, CRT scholars have begun to address issues of praxis. Specifically,…

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, commissioned by Secretary of Education T. H. Bell, issued a report titled "A Nation at Risk," that turned the national spotlight on the need for educational reform and gave impetus to reform efforts over more than two decades. Now another commission, this one appointed by…

"Mayoral takeover" has emerged as a major reform option for struggling urban districts since it was launched in Boston in 1992 and Chicago in 1995. This article examines the design, implementation, and the effects of mayoral-led school systems. Our research addresses issues that are critical to systemwide improvement: Are there variation…

Personalizing the school environment is a central goal of efforts to transform America's schools. Three decades of work by the Project on High Performance Learning Communities are considered that demonstrate the potential impact and importance of the creation of "small learning environments" on student motivation, adjustment, and well-being.…