The East San Gabriel Valley (California) School to Career Partnership encompassing the eastern sections of Los Angeles County and serving an ethnically diverse population, uses design-based learning (DBL) to teach academic and career skills to at-risk students in small groups. Key features of DBL classroom activities include the following: (1) interdisciplinary lessons; (2) use of three-dimensional activities and projects; (3) collaborative groups of students and teachers; (4) projects that involve problem solving with multiple solutions; (5) activities that challenge students to design their own solutions; (6) activities that are not limited to the four walls of the classroom; (7) academic skills that use real-life situations; (8) use of mentors, tutors, and other adults to form one-to-one and small-group learning situations; and (9) activities tied to the state academic and technical standards but not tied rigidly to scope and sequence. A recent study of grade point averages (GPAs) of previously expelled students who participated in the pilot DBL program showed that the average entry GPA was 1.20, while the average exit GPA was 2.38--a 97 percent growth in 1 year. Use of this methodology showed modest 1-year improvement in standardized test scores for middle school students whose baseline GPAs were in the A and B ranges; however, baseline C students' test scores increased 300 percent and D students increased their scores 400 percent. (Contains 23 references.) (KC)