There is a national movement to universalize the high school curriculum so that all students graduate prepared for college. The present work evaluates a policy in Chicago that ended remedial classes and mandated college preparatory course work for all students. Based on an interrupted time-series cohort design with multiple comparisons, this study…

Describes the process used to identify a rare sample of U.S. public secondary schools, those that are divided into "schools-within-schools" and provides descriptive information about the 55 schools of that kind that were found in a national search in fall 1998. Offers some tentative conclusions about the school-within-school reform approach. (SLD)

Studied how enrollment size influences two organizational features of schools: curriculum and social relations. Interviews with teachers, principals, guidance counselors, and students in six public high schools and three schools of choice (two religious, one public) showed the personal nature of social relations in small schools and the targeting…

How the organization of U.S. high school mathematics curriculum affects how much students learn was studied with data from 123 schools in the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Results indicate that students learn more in schools that offer a narrow curriculum of mostly academic courses. (SLD)

The relationship between high school size and student learning was studied using three waves of data from the National Education Longitudinal Study with hierarchical linear modeling to examine achievement growth in reading and mathematics. Results suggest that the ideal high school enrolls between 600 and 900 students. Exceptions are discussed.…

The relationship between preschool experience and the quality of schools subsequently attended as young adolescents was studied for 14,837 eighth graders from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988. The low quality of middle-grade schools attended by former Head Start participants explains, in part, why Head Start effects fail. (SLD)

Using multilevel methods to analyze data from 710 household heads in 45 Detroit (Michigan) area school districts, results show that minority and disadvantaged respondents, especially from the city, favor parental school choice. Potential effects of an interdistrict choice plan are discussed, suggesting that choice might favor inequities. (SLD)

Gender differences related to salaries were studied using 4,802 male and 4,092 female secondary school teachers in 377 high schools involved in the Administrator and Teacher Survey of the High School and Beyond study. Data analyses covered Catholic schools, other private schools, qualification differences, market conditions, merit pay, and faculty…

Teachers' perceptions of their own professional power and how the interaction between principal and teacher gender affects teachers' evaluations of principal leadership were studied for about 9,000 teachers from the Administrator and Teachers Survey of the High School and Beyond study. Interaction between teacher and principal gender contributes…