Examines the start-up and implementation of Philadelphia's small neighborhood high school creation in 2003-08. Discusses student demographics, engagement and achievement, school climate, educators' visions, the role of partners, and remaining challenges.

Commissioned by the Heinz Endowments, this paper reviews the literature on "culturally responsive pedagogy" and the arts. Academic success among African Americans is correlated with education that incorporates racial identity and socialization and a focus on resiliency and culturally relevant concepts. The arts are an ideal venue for such educational programs.

Describes data-driven efforts to raise high school graduation rates in New York, Philadelphia, and Portland, Oregon by replacing low-performing schools with smaller schools or offering alternative schools and programs, as well as their outcomes to date.

The School District of Philadelphia's tiered system of selective, nonselective, and charter high schools, and the process for high school choice, has created real variation in the degree to which high schools can successfully meet the needs of ninth graders. Research has shown that the ninth grade year is critical in determining a student's likelihood of graduating from high school. This mixed-methods study examines the transition to high school in Philadelphia, which we define as including the eighth grade high school selection process and students' experience in their ninth grade year. In our analysis of eighth grade applications to district-managed high schools for the 2007-08 school year, we found that most District eighth graders participated in the high school selection process, but fewer than half of them were admitted and enrolled in any of their chosen schools. Further, comparing across types of high schools, we found first, that the choice process contributes to system stratification, with low-income students, Black and Latino students, students who need special supports, and boys concentrated in nonselective neighborhood high schools and Whites, Asians, and girls concentrated in special admission high schools. Second, we learned that the choice process creates distinct challenges to the neighborhood schools' ability to support ninth graders. Enrollment at neighborhood high schools does not settle until the school selection process settles in late summer, and then continues to shift through the fall due to geographic mobility and returns from the juvenile justice system or other schools. Late enrollments undercut the ability of the neighborhood high schools to prepare for incoming classes, and contribute to changes in course schedules and teacher assignments after the school year begins, which cost important instructional time. Finally, we found that despite widespread acknowledgement of the importance of the freshman year, competing district agendas often mean it is not a priority in district and school planning. Freshman year interventions are often implemented piecemeal, without the professional support teachers need to adopt new practices, and without the assessments needed to know if they are effective. We argue that if low-performing neighborhood high schools are going to "turn around" or improve, it will require not only building school capacity but also implementing changes to the broader systems of district policy and practice in which these schools function, including the high school selection process.

In an era of high-stakes accountability, school leaders often face contradictory pressures as they strive to improve student performance. They must meet the federal mandate of NCLB for student achievement; at the same time, many believe that NCLB constrains their professional judgment about how to best teach and assess students in the context of their own schools. The case of Baker, a K-8 school in Philadelphia, is illustrative. The case study discusses the complicated choices school leaders made as they attempted to meet the needs of all students. As Baker implemented the school district's highly prescriptive approach to curriculum and instruction, using a Managed Instruction System, it struggled to maintain its progressive educational philosophy and 'best' practices. The school's pedagogical goals included: student-centered and project-based learning, teaching for life-long learning, performance-based assessments, and an emphasis on higher order thinking. Baker was a successful learning community for students and adults, whose significant accomplishments were obscured by the fact that it never had made AYP. If the U.S. Department of Education had permitted the state to use its valued-added growth model, the Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment, as an alternative to the status achievement metric that focused on the percentage of proficient students, Baker would have made AYP in 2006-07, the last year of this research.

Under No Child Left Behind, urban school districts have increasingly turned to interim assessments, administered at regular intervals, to help gauge student progress in advance of annual state exams. These assessments have spawned growing debate among educators, assessment experts, and the testing industry: are they worth the significant investment of money and time? In Making the Most of Interim Assessment Data: Lessons from Philadelphia, Research for Action (RFA) weighs in on this issue. The School District of Philadelphia (SDP) was an early adopter of interim assessments, implementing the exams in 2003. Unlike teachers in some other regions, Philadelphia elementary and middle grades teachers rated these 'Benchmark' assessments highly. However, the study found that enthusiasm did not necessarily correlate with higher rates of student achievement. What did predict student success were three factors -- instructional leadership, collective responsibility, and use of the SDP's Core Curriculum. The report underscores the value of investment in ongoing data interpretation that emphasizes teachers' learning within formal instructional communities, such as grade groups of teachers. This research was funded by the Spencer Foundation and the William Penn Foundation.

At the request of the Accountability Review Council, Research for Action identified effective organizational practices used by better performing schools serving substantial numbers of low income middle and high school students in the School District of Philadelphia. These practices are organized into three spheres: Conditions for Teaching, Student-Centered School Community, and Instructional Program. For each sphere, the report offers broad strategies and specific practices to enact the strategies. Nuanced school case studies show how the practices can work synergistically and coherently in schools to help students succeed.