"Refining Remediation" is the fifth installment from the "Keep the Promise" initiative, a three-year research project led by the Mass Insight Education and Research Institute in conjunction with the Boston, Springfield, and Worcester Public Schools. Since 2003, "Keep the Promise" has been investigating school reform's most critical dimension: its success in reaching and serving the students most at risk of leaving high school without the skills required to construct a productive, fulfilling life. "Refining Remediation" provides the most in-depth review ever published of the extraordinary efforts underway in Massachusetts' urban high schools to "keep the promise" to their at-risk students. Just three years ago, common wisdom predicted a "train-wreck" end to the state's experiment with standards and accountability, with unacceptably high failure rates among seniors in the Class of 2003. Remediation strategies such as those examined in this report clearly helped schools, students, and the state to dismiss that gloomy forecast. These investments by the state, and the hard work of educators to create and implement these programs, made passing the first hurdle possible. Without this commitment and follow-through to help the first generation of accountability-era students develop passing-level skills, the entire higher standards reform effort might well have jumped the tracks. On behalf of all of the researchers, writers, advisors, financial underwriters, and educators who helped to produce this report, the authors hope its findings help schools across the Commonwealth improve the ways they serve students most in need of their help--and policymakers to understand and appreciate the impact their investments have had. Sample Research from Mass Insight Education's Building Blocks Initiative for Standards-Based Reform is appended. (Contains 1 chart and 2 footnotes.) [Additional funding for this research was given by Allmerica Foundation, Barr Foundation, John Hancock, and the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation.]