This volume features the reform journeys of six American high schools. The six high schools portrayed here include four large comprehensive high schools (Oakland Technical High in Oakland, California, and Brighton High in Boston, Massachusetts, are urban; Sir Francis Drake in Marin County, California, and Rex Putnam in North Clackamas, Oregon, are suburban), as well as two small schools, one urban and one suburban, started within the past decade (Landmark in New York City and Quest in a suburb of Houston, Texas). The story of each school is framed by a common set of essential questions: (1) who or what creates the impetus for reinventing an existing high school or inventing a new one; (2) how, and under what circumstances, external resources, pressures, or supports act as a stimulus or a deterrent to reform; (3) what is the role of the school district in promoting reform in its high schools; (4) why and how those leading the change create a vision and set of strategies; (5) how a school develops and maintains the traction for continuous improvement; (6) what major obstacles and barriers a school faces in reinventing or inventing itself; and (7) how schools keep a focus on equity, especially as new dilemmas emerge, e.g., in the balancing of choice and equity. (YLB)