Caps, Gowns, and Games: High School Graduates and NCLB
Christopher B. Swanson, The Urban InstituteMay 2003
Caps, Gowns, and Games: High School Graduates and NCLB
Christopher B. Swanson, The Urban Institute
May 2003
The Urban Institute's Education Policy Center has issued a policy brief entitled "Caps, Gowns, and Games: High School Graduates and NCLB," based on a long paper entitled "Counting High School Graduates when Graduates Count: Measuring Graduation Rates under the High Stakes of NCLB." The main point of both is that, at a time when Uncle Sam requires states and districts to use "the percentage of students graduating on time with a regular diploma" as a key indicator of their academic performance in connection with NCLB accountability demands, it matters hugely what method states use to calculate those rates and percentages. Analysts Duncan Chaplin and Christopher Swanson say the NCES method (which cannot even be used in many districts and states due to data gaps) yields rates about ten percent higher than are produced by two other calculations ("cumulative promotion index" [CPI method] and "adjusted completion ratio" [ACR method]). For example, Connecticut's public high school graduation rate in 2000 was 85 percent under the NCES methodology, 76 percent using CPI and 70 percent using ACR. So it matters quite a lot, and the Urban Institute's authors worry that, in an era of high-stakes accountability, states and districts may choose methods that make them look good but understate the extent of the dropout problem. You can find the policy brief at http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310777_LearningCurve_1.pdf and the long paper at http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410641_NCLB.pdf.
High Schools on a Human Scale: How Small Schools Can Transform American Education
Tom Toch, Beacon Press
2003
Veteran education journalist Tom Toch authored this 140-page book for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the latter's effort to promote and support small schools. It profiles five small (or multi-part but small scale) schools in various parts of the country, several of them already famous in high-school reform circles (and two of them charter schools). This clear and nicely written volume offers a good introduction to the world of small high schools, though it's a tad boosterish and doesn't always make clear how difficult this is to do well. [To get a sense of the difficulty, see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=21#136.] Toch's short epilogue ("Scaling Up"), however, is worth the price of admission, for it concisely sets forth some of the central challenges in turning small high schools from fad into a serious education improvement strategy and cautions those who may suppose that size is all that matters when it comes to high-school reform. The ISBN is 080703245X, the publisher is Beacon Press, and you can get more information at http://www.beacon.org/sp03cat/toch.html.
The ABC's of AYP: Raising Achievement for All Students
The Education Trust
Spring 2003
This concise report by the Education Trust provides a summary of NCLB's adequate yearly progress (AYP) requirements. It provides a clear explanation of AYP, clears up some common myths about what the requirements mean for schools and districts, and outlines some of the challenges that lay ahead. It's a clear and useful tool for practitioners and policy makers who want to make heads or tails of this often-confusing part of NCLB. To view the report, click http://www.edtrust.org/main/documents/ABCAYP.pdf.
The Hidden Crisis in the High School Dropout Problems of Young Adults in the U.S.: Recent Trends in Overall School Dropout Rates and Gender Differences in Dropout Behavior
Andrew Sum and Paul Harrington, The Business Roundtable
May 2003
More than a year ago, the Manhattan Institute's Jay Greene alerted the nation to the fact that federal data on high school completions and dropouts are misleading - and far too cheerful. [http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/v01/gadfly26.html#reviews1] Greene showed that, if you discount GEDs and look simply at the number of Americans who get high school diplomas four years after they exit eighth grade, the on-time high school graduation rate is only about 71 percent for the country as a whole - and far lower in some states and among minority students.
Two recent reports from other sources now raise additional problems with the high school completion data supplied by the National Center on Education Statistics (NCES). A study by the Center for Labor Market Studies, commissioned by the Business Roundtable, says that (in addition to the GED issue) NCES excludes hundreds of thousands of youths in jails and other institutions, artificially deflates the dropout rate by including too many young people in the denominator, and draws an unrepresentative statistical sample of young people. After making these adjustments, analysts Andrew Sum and Paul Harrington (with many helpers) estimate that the correct high school graduation rate is about 70 percent - almost the same as Greene's figure. This paper can be found on the Roundtable's website at www.brtable.org./pdf/914.pdf.
Trends in the Use of School Choice: 1993 to 1999
Stacey Bielick and Christopher Chapman, National Center for Education Statistics
May 2003
In this report, analysts at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), confirm that more poor families are taking advantage of new opportunities in the education marketplace - and that they're happier when they do. Analyzing three cycles of the National Household Education Survey from 1993 to 1999, NCES reports that the percentage of children attending traditional "assigned" public schools dropped from 80 to 76% between1993 and 1999. That drop was almost completely the result of a three percent rise in the percentage of students in "chosen" public schools (magnets or charters), from 11 to 14 percent. More striking is the percentage of children from very poor families who attend traditional public schools; it fell from 83 to 74 percent, with most of those students switching to "chosen" public schools. Most telling of all are the higher levels of parental satisfaction when it comes to public school choice. Compared to parents whose kids are in traditional public schools, parents of youngsters in "chosen" public schools are more likely to say they're "very satisfied" with teacher quality, academic standards, order and discipline, and overall school quality. We look forward to the results of the most recent survey, taken in 2002, to see if these trends continue. In the meantime, look up the report at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003031.pdf.
Union strikes back in LA board election
On Tuesday, union-backed (and incumbent) Los Angeles Board of Education member David Tokofsky defeated challenger Nellie Rios-Parra in a key runoff election that shifted the board's balance of power back to the union. Four years ago, with the backing of the Coalition for Kids, a political action group led by financier Eli Broad and former mayor Richard Riordan, reform-minded candidates were able to win a majority on the school board. This year, the teachers' union outspent the Coalition and helped defeat two reformist incumbents in the general election in March, then provided Tokofsky with plenty of financial support to help him ensure victory in this runoff. [For more details on the general election, see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=14#293.]
"Trustee Tokofsky reelected," by Cara Mia DiMassa, Duke Helfand, and Erika Hayasaki, Los Angeles Times, May 21, 2003
Vouchers and the court, part II
Last year, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public money could cover tuition costs for children at private schools. Now, the Court is being asked to rule on whether tax dollars can cover scholarships, textbooks, and other types of aid for the study of religion in higher ed institutions. At stake is Washington state's "Promise Scholarships," which cover tuition and other costs for low-income, high-achieving high school graduates at Washington universities. Joshua Davey qualified for one, but was denied when he decided to study pastoral ministries at a religious college. State officials said that Washington law forbids public aid to religious schools, basing their decision on the state's "Blaine Amendment," one of a series passed in the late 19th century to force Catholic children into largely Protestant public schools. The setting for this case is college, but the ruling will have far-reaching implications for K-12 education, since Colorado's Blaine Amendment has already been invoked in a suit challenging their new voucher law and the outcome of that suit may determine whether other Blaine states will be able to pursue voucher programs. [For more on Colorado's program, go to http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=17#226.]
"Justices again asked to draw church-state line," by David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2003
"Rights coalition files suit over Colorado vouchers law," by Michael A. Fletcher, The Washington Post, May 21, 2003
Profile of Learning pitched in MN
After a five-year battle to replace Minnesota's disgraceful Profile of Learning standards with a more rigorous set of academic standards and accountability - a fight led by Governor Tim Pawlenty and education secretary Cheri Pearson Yecke-the state legislature finally reached a bipartisan agreement to repeal the standards minutes before the close of this year's session. [For the Gadfly's treatment of this ongoing struggle, go to http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=8#370 and http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=21#129.] This vote, according to Yecke, marks a shift "away from the project-oriented Profile to a more back-to-basics system of learning." Now that the initial battle has been won, of course, the challenge facing policy makers is to write new, more specific and rigorous standards in science, social studies, and art. (Math and language arts standards have already been completed).
"Profile of learning repealed," by Anthony Lonetree, The Star Tribune, May 20, 2003
"New standards win legislative OK on a bipartisan note," by John Welsh, St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 20, 2003
CA schools paid extra to do the minimum
A recent article in the Sacramento Bee uncovered a questionable education finance plan in California dating back to 1979 that forces the state to provide extra money to schools that meet bare minimum requirements for carrying out state mandates. Proposition 4 declared that, if the state imposed a new program or higher level of service on a local agency, it had to provide the additional funds to pay for it. Thirty years later this has been transformed into a system for paying schools to do even the most basic kinds of educational activities, such as "posting agendas for public meetings, keeping track of immunizations, [and] teaching science to sophomores." Unfortunately, there appears to be little accountability built into this program, as one consulting firm that works with hundreds of districts across the state was recently accused of falsifying information on these claims. While the firm denies the allegations, it did agree to a multi-million dollar settlement to avoid a drawn-out court battle, which the senior assistant attorney general says "speaks volumes." A reforming breeze seems to be blowing, however: last year, the governor provided an additional $1.6 million for new auditors and the legislature set limits on how much time districts have to submit claims after a law is passed. A better solution has also been proposed: eliminating the many separate mandates and funding streams in favor of a system of block grants that schools could use at their discretion.
"Paying for schools: obscure system costs millions, rankles many," by Deb Kollars, The Sacramento Bee, May 18, 2003
"Education false-claims suit settled," by Deb Kollars, The Sacramento Bee, May 21, 2003
Crossing the Ideological Divide
As Checker says, it's true that we need better school leadership to improve American K-12 education. With a large percentage of U.S. principals retiring within a decade and with a revolving door to many superintendents' offices, we need new solutions if we are going to recruit, prepare, and retain school leaders who can meet the challenges of these hugely demanding (and poorly compensated) professional positions.
The argument, however, is about exactly HOW to select and prepare those new, improved public-school administrators. Better Leaders for America's Schools: A Manifesto offers a now familiar conservative policy palliative: simplify entry requirements, introduce competition among training programs, and relax the terms of employment for school leaders.
As a confirmed member of the "education monopoly," the Manifesto's solutions seem familiar indeed, and in some respects threatening. Yet the Manifesto also contains important convergences with my own thinking. I stand on the opposite end of the policy spectrum from many ideas proposed by the Fordham Foundation, but as I read the Manifesto, I discovered many points of agreement:
*We agree that there is an urgent need for improved administrator quality. The demands of NCLB require not only highly qualified teachers in every classroom but also highly qualified leaders in every school.
*We agree that such leaders shoulder a huge responsibility and in far too many instances are under-compensated and over-worked.
*We agree that the communities in most need are the same ones desperately searching for school leaders who are capable of thinking beyond the ordinary.
*Perhaps surprisingly, we agree that good administrators can and do emerge even if they haven't taken all the education courses prescribed by most states and almost all teacher education institutions.
These points of agreement are significant. Indeed, I also concur that current preparation experiences for administrators are often (not always!) inadequate for those who assume leadership positions. Too few administrators have all the preparation they need for leadership success - frequently the result of weak or ineffective programs. The Manifesto's solution to this quality problem, however, is to eliminate the program requirement. Mine is to strengthen it.
That said, I might be inclined to sign the Manifesto but for two issues that are less ideological than educational.
Issue One: Principals must understand teaching and learning processes in order to shape a vital school environment.
The Manifesto argues for distributed leadership - namely, that principals need not be instructional paragons so long as someone in the school is. That concept has doubtful utility for all schools, but especially small schools. While school leaders need not be exceptional teachers, they must understand instruction. A great basketball coach need not be a great player, and few are. But a successful coach understands the structure and complexity of the game. Similarly, a school's principal needs to know how to provide instructional guidance, to know different learning strategies, and to understand when and why teachers should use each strategy. Though principals need not demonstrate that they are personally exceptional in using the techniques, if they are responsible for a school's learning environment, every parent should expect administrators to possess such understanding. The Manifesto does not require it. It should!
The Manifesto's hypothetical principal is politically savvy, resourceful, managerially competent, and focused, among other things. Even in larger schools where "distributed leadership" is possible, however, it is questionable whether a school leader can succeed without an in-depth understanding of learning theory and pedagogical processes. Small schools, where distributed leadership is impossible, could find themselves with NO instructional leader.
Interestingly, the Manifesto "prepared" principal must use data to improve instruction (I agree) but does so, I presume, without any deep understanding of how young people learn. Anecdotal evidence in the Manifesto is used to argue that vision, resourcefulness, and political savvy are sufficient for school leadership. I have no doubt that the testimonials are genuine, but question whether they are sufficient for grounding such a significant policy direction.
Issue Two: Administrators must possess certain skills and dispositions before they assume leadership roles.
There is a growing body of knowledge that school administrators need to internalize before they assume responsibility. See www.cepa.gse.rutgers.edu/whatweknow.pdf.
Yes, some large city superintendents come from business or the military. The Manifesto cites examples of some who made it despite the absence of traditional preparation. What it does not discuss are the failures and their consequences. This is particularly important because the context is almost always urban - where America's most vulnerable children live and where the consequences of failure are most profound.
Reasonable people may debate precisely what body of knowledge a prospective administrator should possess. But the Manifesto rejects all the extant professional literature in favor of certain personal characteristics that develop and are refined through on-the-job training. Such a personally competent but professionally limited person would be responsible for directing and evaluating a multiplicity of educational functions with limited understanding of many of those functions.
These two issues are deal breakers and keep me from signing the Manifesto. The Manifesto will surely gain attention, readers, and signers because many of the criticisms it levels are valid, such as the fact that many who graduate from traditional programs either eschew administrative roles or are ill-qualified to succeed in them. Indeed, the Manifesto's key failing is not its attack on traditional preparation programs. The real flaw is that its vision of a school administrator resembles a savvy manager more than an educational leader. If schools sold widgets, the former is most certainly needed. They don't! They focus on helping students learn essential skills and knowledge which requires school leaders to be more than skillful managers.
Becoming an effective educational leader requires professional preparation. The future of our children and perhaps our nation hinges on our ability to work together to recruit and prepare the best educational leaders possible. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere between the two ends of the ideological spectrum. If it does, then more dialogue and debate are needed.
Thomas Lasley is dean of the school of education and allied professions at the University of Dayton.
Better Leaders for America's Schools
Few deny that U.S. public schools and districts need better leaders than many of them now have - or that the pressure of NCLB's performance expectations plus the surge of retirements among principals and superintendents will inflame this need in the years ahead. But where to find such people? What to look for? How to prepare them? On what terms to employ them?
This week, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (the Foundation's sister organization) and the Broad Foundation released a bipartisan "manifesto" that answers these urgent questions. Initially signed by 65 prominent educators and policymakers, Better Leaders for America's Schools calls for wholesale changes in how and where our schools and districts seek the leadership they need.
The boldest idea is to stop looking for school leaders only within the ranks of veteran educators. In today's environment, what matters most is that they be effective executives.
Bold, yes, but also commonsensical. The quest for leadership is not a function of ideology or politics but of supply and demand on the one hand, and organizational/regulatory arrangements on the other. The manifesto's signers come from many directions, including the education field, but they all agree that the schools and districts in greatest need of first-rate leadership are more apt to get it if they broaden the search.
We made a breakthrough two decades back when our idea of the principal's role evolved from "building manager" to "instructional leader." Today, however, we understand that, while schools still need instructional leadership - people expert in teaching, learning, curriculum, and assessment - that capability need not sit at the principal's desk. Just as some major districts (e.g., New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Jacksonville) have engaged non-educators to lead them, trusting these astute executives to include top-flight instructional leaders on their teams, so, too, should individual schools develop leadership teams. Private and charter schools already do this - and are free to engage strong leaders, regardless of their backgrounds. Let the principal ensure that the school has the instructional leadership it needs but think of the principal him/herself as CEO of a multi-million dollar public enterprise, responsible for personnel, budgeting, and political and community relations - but above all for forging an organization that can successfully meet the expectations set by federal and state standards and accountability systems.
That's more than a one-person job. Today's term of art is "distributed leadership." It means the school's essential needs can be met by a team working together. Yes, that's harder to accomplish in a small school - though there are plenty of small schools where a veteran teacher doubles as vice principal and instructionally leads the whole team. It's definitely possible. Read the profiles of Vanessa Ward and Jennifer Henry in Better Leaders for illustrations of people from non-teaching backgrounds who are successful school leaders.
Once you acknowledge that a principal or superintendent need not be an education expert or teacher, everything else changes: how they're identified, where they're recruited and screened, how they're prepared, how (if at all) they are "certified" by the state, how their jobs are described, and their terms of employment. The new manifesto casts a wide net, looking for personal attributes and track records that match the needs of a particular school while slashing state certification to a minimum and making districts responsible for tailoring the new leader's training to his/her own circumstances (and obtaining that training from lots of places, not just ed schools).
Equally important, the manifesto's signers believe these leaders must be empowered as executives, with authority equal to their responsibility, including control over personnel, budget and program. Their pay needs to improve, too, to make these jobs attractive for first-rate leaders with many alternatives. (The manifesto calls for principals' salaries up to $180,000.)
Today's system of recruiting, training, and employing school leaders is simply not equal to the leadership demands that we face. It's also full of ironies, such as over-production of educators who acquire principals' licenses but don't intend to use them. Famine amidst plenty describes today's supply and demand (and quantity-quality) imbalance. We learn this from a survey of current state certification practices conducted by Emily Feistritzer and the National Center for Education Information. A summary of these findings appears in the manifesto and the details can be found at http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=1#791.
Also published with the manifesto are profiles of six accomplished education leaders who emerged via non-traditional routes. They exemplify the kinds of people that signers hope will enter the field. Nobody argues that the education profession does not produce fine leaders or that the country should hire people only from unusual backgrounds. Rather, we say that such paths are worth exploring, especially where the demand for top-notch leaders exceeds the supply.
Nor is this pie in the sky. Besides the living examples in the manifesto and the precedents of private and charter schools, we can glimpse a wave of interest in the recruitment and deployment of unconventional school leaders. Such programs as "New Leaders for New Schools," the preparation of founder/leaders for the KIPP schools, and the Broad Residency in Urban Education are cutting such pathways through the education forest. Recent months have also brought a gusher of studies, reports, and proposals from other scholars (e.g., Mark Tucker, Rick Hess) and organizations (e.g., the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds, the Center on Reinventing Public Education) that focus on what's lacking in the traditional pipeline and suggest alternatives to it.
Sure, it will be controversial. Education change always is. But aside from teacher quality, the make-or-break challenge for a country seeking to boost student achievement and school performance will be the leaders it installs in those schools. If we seek them only in the same old places, we're not likely to find leaders better than those we have today. Some will be terrific, of course, but we need thousands more. So let's open the doors and invite many more people to enter. That's not politics or ideology at work. It's common sense. Want to join us? Sign the manifesto at http://www.edexcellence.net/template/page.cfm?id=271.
Better leaders for America's schools: a Manifesto, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, May 2003
"Schools seen facing 'leadership famine,'" by George Archibald, Washington Times, May 21, 2003
"Revamp rules for choosing administrators, study urges," by Scott Stephens, Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 20, 2003
"Center calls for school changes," by Selicia Kennedy-Ross, San Bernardino Sun, May 19, 2003
The Hidden Crisis in the High School Dropout Problems of Young Adults in the U.S.: Recent Trends in Overall School Dropout Rates and Gender Differences in Dropout Behavior
Andrew Sum and Paul Harrington, The Business Roundtable
May 2003
More than a year ago, the Manhattan Institute's Jay Greene alerted the nation to the fact that federal data on high school completions and dropouts are misleading - and far too cheerful. [http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/v01/gadfly26.html#reviews1] Greene showed that, if you discount GEDs and look simply at the number of Americans who get high school diplomas four years after they exit eighth grade, the on-time high school graduation rate is only about 71 percent for the country as a whole - and far lower in some states and among minority students.
Two recent reports from other sources now raise additional problems with the high school completion data supplied by the National Center on Education Statistics (NCES). A study by the Center for Labor Market Studies, commissioned by the Business Roundtable, says that (in addition to the GED issue) NCES excludes hundreds of thousands of youths in jails and other institutions, artificially deflates the dropout rate by including too many young people in the denominator, and draws an unrepresentative statistical sample of young people. After making these adjustments, analysts Andrew Sum and Paul Harrington (with many helpers) estimate that the correct high school graduation rate is about 70 percent - almost the same as Greene's figure. This paper can be found on the Roundtable's website at www.brtable.org./pdf/914.pdf.
Caps, Gowns, and Games: High School Graduates and NCLB
Christopher B. Swanson, The Urban Institute
May 2003
The Urban Institute's Education Policy Center has issued a policy brief entitled "Caps, Gowns, and Games: High School Graduates and NCLB," based on a long paper entitled "Counting High School Graduates when Graduates Count: Measuring Graduation Rates under the High Stakes of NCLB." The main point of both is that, at a time when Uncle Sam requires states and districts to use "the percentage of students graduating on time with a regular diploma" as a key indicator of their academic performance in connection with NCLB accountability demands, it matters hugely what method states use to calculate those rates and percentages. Analysts Duncan Chaplin and Christopher Swanson say the NCES method (which cannot even be used in many districts and states due to data gaps) yields rates about ten percent higher than are produced by two other calculations ("cumulative promotion index" [CPI method] and "adjusted completion ratio" [ACR method]). For example, Connecticut's public high school graduation rate in 2000 was 85 percent under the NCES methodology, 76 percent using CPI and 70 percent using ACR. So it matters quite a lot, and the Urban Institute's authors worry that, in an era of high-stakes accountability, states and districts may choose methods that make them look good but understate the extent of the dropout problem. You can find the policy brief at http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310777_LearningCurve_1.pdf and the long paper at http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410641_NCLB.pdf.
Trends in the Use of School Choice: 1993 to 1999
Stacey Bielick and Christopher Chapman, National Center for Education Statistics
May 2003
In this report, analysts at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), confirm that more poor families are taking advantage of new opportunities in the education marketplace - and that they're happier when they do. Analyzing three cycles of the National Household Education Survey from 1993 to 1999, NCES reports that the percentage of children attending traditional "assigned" public schools dropped from 80 to 76% between1993 and 1999. That drop was almost completely the result of a three percent rise in the percentage of students in "chosen" public schools (magnets or charters), from 11 to 14 percent. More striking is the percentage of children from very poor families who attend traditional public schools; it fell from 83 to 74 percent, with most of those students switching to "chosen" public schools. Most telling of all are the higher levels of parental satisfaction when it comes to public school choice. Compared to parents whose kids are in traditional public schools, parents of youngsters in "chosen" public schools are more likely to say they're "very satisfied" with teacher quality, academic standards, order and discipline, and overall school quality. We look forward to the results of the most recent survey, taken in 2002, to see if these trends continue. In the meantime, look up the report at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003031.pdf.
The ABC's of AYP: Raising Achievement for All Students
The Education Trust
Spring 2003
This concise report by the Education Trust provides a summary of NCLB's adequate yearly progress (AYP) requirements. It provides a clear explanation of AYP, clears up some common myths about what the requirements mean for schools and districts, and outlines some of the challenges that lay ahead. It's a clear and useful tool for practitioners and policy makers who want to make heads or tails of this often-confusing part of NCLB. To view the report, click http://www.edtrust.org/main/documents/ABCAYP.pdf.
High Schools on a Human Scale: How Small Schools Can Transform American Education
Tom Toch, Beacon Press
2003
Veteran education journalist Tom Toch authored this 140-page book for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the latter's effort to promote and support small schools. It profiles five small (or multi-part but small scale) schools in various parts of the country, several of them already famous in high-school reform circles (and two of them charter schools). This clear and nicely written volume offers a good introduction to the world of small high schools, though it's a tad boosterish and doesn't always make clear how difficult this is to do well. [To get a sense of the difficulty, see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=21#136.] Toch's short epilogue ("Scaling Up"), however, is worth the price of admission, for it concisely sets forth some of the central challenges in turning small high schools from fad into a serious education improvement strategy and cautions those who may suppose that size is all that matters when it comes to high-school reform. The ISBN is 080703245X, the publisher is Beacon Press, and you can get more information at http://www.beacon.org/sp03cat/toch.html.