Not long ago, Ontario's 900 high schools and their 600,000 students were in a rut. The province had experienced 101 years of tumult in education, including an entirely new program for high schools, rapid implementation of new curricula, a zero-tolerance approach to discipline, budget reductions, and much labor unrest. More importantly, the graduation rate was declining. In 2003, only 60% of the cohort graduated in the normal four years, and only 68% graduated after five years. By 2010, the situation had completely turned around. The five-year graduation rate rose to 81%, meaning that nearly 20,000 more students were graduating each year than in 2003. Labor disruptions had ceased, few young teachers were leaving the profession, and many teachers were staying on even after they reached retirement eligibility. Meanwhile the performance of Ontario students in the international PISA tests improved relative to the rest of Canada--which is among the highest-performing countries in the world. The results from Ontario's high schools shows what can be done if the right strategies are implemented in the right ways. In this article, the author discusses a comprehensive strategy for improvement that focused on enabling students' success and acting proactively when they had problems. He emphasizes that the best strategy in the world will fail if the implementation is ineffective.