High school redesign is one of the most elusive reform challenges to date. This paper explains why personalized high schools are hard to get and keep in a traditional school district, and shows how they can be made much more broadly available through changes in policy and philanthropic investments. Drawing from examples of successful and…

There is widespread agreement that many of California's high schools are doing a poor job of preparing their students for college and careers. The James Irvine Foundation is sponsoring a major initiative to develop "Multiple Pathways"--now called the Linked Learning approach--as a strategy for improving the performance of California high…

Analyzes approximately 500 published curricular timetables for upper secondary, college preparatory programs from over 100 countries, 1920-89. Virtually all timetables analyzed fell into four categories--classical, mathematics and science, arts and humanities, and comprehensive--consistent between countries and over time. Much programmatic change…

This monograph examines James B. Conant's works on American education. Emphasis is placed on three major works--"The American High School Today: A First Report to Interested Citizens,""Education in the Junior High School Years," and "The Comprehensive High School: A Second Report to Interested Citizens." Attention is…

The comprehensive-versus-selective school issue is primarily a socio-politico-economic rather than pedagogic problem. The International Project for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) had as its primary objective to relate certain social, economic and pedagogic characteristics of the different systems to the outcomes of instruction in…