With the death last week of Theodore R. Sizer, precollegiate education lost one of its most influential thinkers and a founder of the contemporary movement to improve schools. Mr. Sizer died Oct. 21 at his home in Harvard, Mass., of colon cancer. He was 77. Over his long career, Mr. Sizer was dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education,…

Lots of districts like to think they have close-knit leadership teams. But few school leaders can say they've ironed their clothes together, which became a morning ritual for a group from San Francisco that spent a week at the Harvard Business School in Boston. Joined by similar teams from seven other large districts, they camped out in dorm-like…

Leading national civil rights groups and advocates are increasingly divided over whether the No Child Left Behind Act will improve the academic achievement of poor and minority students, a rift that is generating conversation and concern among a circle of people accustomed to working together. Few civil rights advocates disagree with the law's…