This paper argues that progressive pedagogy is a viable alternative to more limited basic skill approaches to school reform. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data collected during the fourth year of a 7-year multi-site school reform initiative in a besieged urban district, the paper documents ways in which teachers have dramatically altered the physical and social organization of their classroom, used an enhanced repertoire of instructional strategies, and redirected students to solve their own social and intellectual problems. In turn, children have become self-reliant. They work collaboratively with one another and make choices about the pacing of their learning. Yet teachers seldom draw on children's immediate interests and extra-classroom lives to construct curriculum. What emerges is a hybrid curriculum in which new social structures support traditional learning objectives. The paper concludes that in struggling districts it may be easier to shift classroom culture than to change curriculum content. (Contains 65 references.) (Author)