While educators and officials across the United States are struggling with how to raise student achievement and improve graduation rates, very few programs have been shown to work at scale in achieving either goal. In 2010, through the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund, the U.S. Department of Education selected several promising programs for expansion and further...
Comprehensive School Reform
The state of the American high school in urban communities is a matter of great concern. Families, educators, and policymakers continue to be discouraged by high dropout rates, low academic achievement, and the failure of many high school youth to meet graduation requirements and reach the level of educational attainment necessary to enter college. There is now greater...
Large, comprehensive high schools in urban areas are often troubled environments for teaching and learning. Research strongly indicates that, in such schools, ninth grade is a year in which many students start on the path to low achievement and dropping out. Leaving the more protected environment of middle school, many ninth-graders feel lost and anonymous, unsupported...
Developed by the Institute for Research and Reform in Education ( IRRE ), First Things First is an ambitious comprehensive school reform model that seeks to address the impersonal nature and poor performance of many secondary schools serving disadvantaged students. Calling for changes in structure, instruction, governance, and accountability in low-performing middle...
The problems of urban middle and high schools are rooted in the inadequate preparation that too many students receive in elementary schools, and these problems become most visible in the ninth grade, when students encounter more demanding coursework and tougher requirements for grade-level promotion. In troubled high schools, a large percentage of ninth-grade students...
Launched in Houston in 1993 by James Ketelsen, retired CEO of Tenneco, and since expanded to 12 additional school districts, Project Graduation Really Achieves Dreams ( GRAD ) combines a variety of promising reforms to improve instruction and raise student achievement in schools that serve primarily minority and low-income students. With the overarching objective of...