School reform in the 1990s has been focused on school-based restructuring, with local efforts shown to be more successful than earlier central or remote control approaches. Success has followed changes in teachers' classroom behavior, in the structure of the school, and its school culture. The local school restructuring approach is illustrated through two projects: Project SEARCH, a Jacob Javits Demonstration Project, promotes change one classroom at a time, through an individual approach to teachers. The South Carolina Accelerated Schools Project (ASP) uses an inquiry approach with teams of teachers to create positive school wide change. ASP teachers are involved in school-wide action research. Both programs have been used to restructure the "Middleton School," a Schoolwide Title I Project school serving an 87 percent African American student body in a rural area of South Carolina. The school's involvement in two projects with similar premises but different paradigms resulted in positive change: (1) teacher enpowerment has been positively affected by action research with greater participation by teachers in decision making; (2) curriculum and instruction have been modified to follow a gifted and talented model for all students with positive results; and (3) all the initiatives support each other through a process that actively involves teachers in both action and reflection. (Contains 25 references.) (JLS)