School reform leaders from Chicago (Illinois), Denver (Colorado), New York (New York), Seattle (Washington), Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), and Los Angeles (California) created the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform to work to improve urban education so that all urban youth are well-prepared for postsecondary education, work, and citizenship. Papers in this volume provide insights into an approach advocated by the Cross City Campaign, the small schools movement. The following papers are included: (1) "Introduction: What's So Good about Small Schools? (Michelle Fine); (2) "Beginnings: An interview with David Sherman (United Federation of Teachers) in New York City" (New York); (3) "Urban Dreamcatchers: Planning and Launching New Small Schools" (Jacqueline Ancess); (4)"Small Schools: Spaces for Moral Outrage and Education for Social Justice" (Maxine Greene); (5) "Perspectives: Administrators" (Olivia Ifill-Lynch and Sylvia Gibson); (6) "Perspectives: Teachers" (Michelle Smith); (7) "Authentic Relationships: Honoring the Difficult" (Camilla Greene); (8) "Perspectives: Parents--Holding on to a Dream: Parents' Hopes and Fears for New Small Schools"; (9) "Perspectives: Students"; (10) "Perspectives: P.S. 261" (Arthur Foresta, Mark Buswinka, Billy Holiday, Michael Hopper, and students); (11) "Can the Odds Be Changed? (Deborah Meier); (12) "Marathon High School: Reflection Grounds Dramatic Restructuring" (excerpt from "The Five Schools Study: Restructuring Philadelphia's Comprehensive High Schools" produced by Research for Action for the Philadelphia Education Fund (ED 411 604)); (13) "Essential Elements of Small Schools" (Cross City Campaign); (14) "The Small School Movement: A Review of the Literature" (Robert Gladden); and (15) "The Effects of Size of Student Body on School Costs: New York City High Schools" (Patrice Iatarola, Leanna Steifel, Norm Fruchter, and Robert Berne). (Contains a list of 21 resource organizations and 29 selections for further reading.) (SLD)