American education has always had its critics, and undoubtedly always will. Nonetheless, there are signs that the educational environment is improving in unexpected ways. This issue of the Brookings Papers on Education Policy, the eighth volume springing from a series of annual meetings sponsored by the Brookings Institution to examine specific educational issues, takes a step back to look at major reforms implemented over the last twenty years that have provided results or, because they are only recently in place, appear to hold promise for the future of education in the United States. Contents in this volume include: (1) Introduction (Diane Ravitch); (2) Test-Based Accountability: The Promise and the Perils (Tom Loveless); (3) Can the Federal Government Improve Education Research? (Brian Jacob and Jens Ludwig); (4) Realizing the Promise of Brand-Name Schools (Steven F.Wilson); (5) School Choice: How an Abstract Idea Became a Political Reality (Joseph P. Viteritti); (6) Education Reform and Content: The Long View (E.D. Hirsch, Jr.); and (7) Evidence-Based Reading Policy in the United States: How Scientific Research Informs Instructional Practices (Reid Lyon, Vinita Chhabra, Sally E. Shaywitz, and Bennett A. Shaywitz). [For individual chapters, see: ED485874; ED486587; ED486591; ED486595; ED486597; and ED486599.]