Design and implementation of high school reform: Perspectives from research and practice

Abstract

There has been a proliferation of high school reform models and interventions over the past few decades aimed at improving the nation's high schools, including increasing graduation requirements, introducing technology to classrooms, grouping ninth-grade students into their own "academies," reorienting the curriculum toward particular career themes, and implementing radical turnaround school models. But there have been few systematic efforts to map the high school reform landscape. The goal of this volume is to do just that-map the reform landscape in high schools. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the entire volume. After describing the challenges facing recent high school reform, we outline the four sections of this volume: Section 1: Context for understanding high school reform; Section 2: Understanding programs and interventions in high school improvement efforts; Section 3: The processes and conditions that support or inhibit effective implementation in high schools; and Section 4: What do we know about organizations that drive new initiatives in high school improvement?