The Ford Foundation's City High School Recognition Program (conducted in l982-83), was designed to find, document, and recognize the overall progress made in recent years by inner city high schools that previously had been failing. Through a blend of $l,000 recognition awards and $20,000 project grants, the program sought to reinforce the most promising educational activities within these schools and to heighten public interest in them. This report begins by describing the conception and implementation of the program and continues with sections giving the impressions of the site visitors who examined each participating school and a sampling of schools' and communitys' responses to the awards and grants. The final sections sums up what the recognized schools had in common, factors involved in improvement, and major problems still facing inner-city high schools. Appendices list recipients of the awards and grants, site visitors, award/grant selection panels, and statistics about the cities and schools in the program. (CMG)