Ever since it sprang from a major study of American high schools and the publication of Theodore Sizer’s book Horace’s Compromise, the Coalition of Essential Schools has seen itself primarily as a high school reform movement. But some of the healthiest examples of Essential School principles and pedagogy can be found at the middle school level. A well-established national movement
In a bold step designed to dramatically reduce the number of students teachers see in a semester, Iroquois High School will launch a “Macro-class Optional Program” in the coming school year. The program redesigns the school’s schedule into three 100-minute blocks, punctuated at midday by a 70-minute lunch and activity period. During its first year, it will coexist alongside the
In a stunning decision that forced educational change of an order rarely seen in this country, Kentucky’s Supreme Court in 1989 ruled the entire state public school system unconstitutional because of substantial inequities in the level of school funding in different districts. The state was told to throw out its laws on education and to rewrite them in a form
How does a district foster change and growth across its entire public school system, not just in a few “special” schools, or with a few extraordinary individuals? Jefferson County decided a decade ago that the answer lay in linking school improvement explicitly to the professional growth of teachers, administrators, and support staff. With the help of a $600,000 grant from