This article reflects on the two subsequent articles--the first by Mike Davies and the second by David Taylor--that provide exhilarating challenges to the diminishing and demeaning status quo of current education policy and practice in England.

We must prepare young adolescents for a bright future by examining all of our educational practices in terms of their current and future relevance. The education we provide our students must prepare them to address enormously complex issues involving demographics and international relations, environmental and human health, and the development and…

This article is based on an inaugural professorial lecture given by Jane Martin at the University of Birmingham on 3 December 2014. It grew out of research in progress on the life and work of the leading educational reformer, Caroline Benn, wife of one of the most prominent and controversial post-war socialists in Britain, Tony Benn.

Too often school leaders, teachers and counselors invest their energies into preparing students for college. In today's society, that's not enough. Students must be prepared for multiple options after high school including gainful employment. This newsletter looks at ways schools can ensure more students are college and career-ready by creating…

Anybody who has studied education over the past forty years is aware that secondary education in England is the subject of continuous and continuing debate. Everyone has been to school and therefore everyone lays claim to some expertise--the lot of teachers is never easy. But it is a contention of this article that teachers are at least partly…

Over the past three years, the College Readiness Indicator Systems (CRIS) project has afforded New Visions for Public Schools an opportunity to reflect upon their college readiness systems and practices. Through their involvement in the project, they have been able to explore various strategies for ensuring that their students graduate from high…

Post-school outcomes for adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are exceedingly poor. The convergence of adolescence as a development period, the expression of ASD during adolescence, and the complicated logistic nature of high schools create a perfect storm of complexity that may pose challenges and establish barriers to…

In recent years educators and policymakers have set a goal that students graduate from high school ready for college and careers. However, as a nation we are far from achieving this goal, particularly for low-income and minority students. For example, in states where all eleventh-graders take the ACT[R], only 27 percent of low-income students in…

As one of only six states receiving a federal Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy grant, Pennsylvania has designed and implemented an innovative program that focuses on improved instruction and interventions to ensure every student is literate and graduates from high school ready for college and a career. This report describes Pennsylvania's…

The Developmental Strategies for College Readiness and Success Resource Guide was produced by the Education Commission of the States and the Southern Regional Education Board for the "Countdown to 2015: Developmental Strategies to Advance Readiness in the Common Core Era" convening held April 21-23, 2014 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The…

The current educational reform agenda requires that stakeholders in the school community help all students graduate. The U.S. Department of Education's "A Blueprint for Reform: Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act" sends all stakeholders a clear message to take action that results in every student completing high school…

For the first time in the nation's history 46 States and the District of Columbia have agreed that all K-12 students will be educated along a common continuum of high academic expectations known as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Having clear, consistent standards in English language arts/literacy and mathematics will help ensure that all…

Dropping out of high school is not an event, but rather a process that involves a number of complex and interrelated factors. For example, 50% of eventual dropouts can be identified as early as the sixth grade and 80% by the ninth, based on observable academic, attendance, and behavior indicators. Furthermore, the first marking period of the ninth…

One of the key claims of choice advocates is that it will take diverse schooling options to engage all children in learning. In a school system truly open to new providers of instruction and diverse schooling options, private schools and public schools of choice can vie for customers by trying different subject themes and pedagogies. If a school's…

Many educational researchers have identified issues on classifying schools and some have made use of ad-hoc classification systems in their analyses; however, these solutions are generally one-dimensional, which prohibits them from capturing the full breadth of variation among schools. To understand the amount of variation that exist in schools…