Four recent briefs, written by MDRC researchers for the National High School Center, are now available on the MDRC Web site:

• State- and District-Level Support for Successful Transitions into High School by Corinne Herlihy, May 2007. This policy brief focuses on five key challenges that states, districts, and schools should address to support a successful transition into high school.
  
  
• Toward Ensuring a Successful Transition into High School by Corinne Herlihy, May 2007. This issue brief suggests that transitions into high school can be eased when both structural and specialized curricula reforms are in place.
  
  
• Managing the Transition to High School in a Comprehensive Urban High School by Thomas J. Smith, May 2007. This “snapshot” explains how Thomas A. Edison High School in Philadelphia implemented a Ninth-Grade Success Academy.
  
  
• Emerging Evidence on Improving High School Student Achievement and Graduation Rates: The Effects of Four Popular Improvement Programs by Corinne Herlihy and Janet Quint, November 2006. This research brief draws on findings from four studies by MDRC that shed light on both the nature of the problems found in low-performing high schools and on the effectiveness of promising interventions that attempt to address those problems.