Reinventing high school: Outcomes of the Coalition Campus Schools Project

• Published in: American educational research journal 2002, Vol.39 (3), p.639-673
• Main Authors: Darling-Hammond, Linda, Ancess, Jacqueline, Ort, Susanna W
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abbruch; Academic Achievement; Boards of education; Collaboration; Cooperative learning; Core curriculum; Education reform; Educational Change; Educational organization; Educational sciences; Effektivität; Elementary schools; Empirische Untersuchung; Evaluation; General points; Größe; High School; High school students; High Schools; Initiatives; Interdisciplinary aspects; International schools; Klassengröße; Leistung; Longitudinal studies; Längsschnittuntersuchung; New York (New York); New York, N.Y; Parks & recreation areas; Performance Factors; Reform Efforts; School boards; School districts; School dropouts; School restructuring; School Size; Schools; Schulabschluss; Schule; Schulorganisation; Schulreform; Schulversagen; Schulversäumnis; Schüler; Schülerleistung; Secondary school curricula; Secondary schools; Secondary teaching; Sekundarschule; Small Schools; Social and Institutional Analysis; Student Needs; Students; Teachers; Teaching; United States, Canada; Urban schools; USA
• ISSN: 0002-8312; 1935-1011
• DOI: 10.3102/00028312039003639

Long-standing critiques of large "factory model" high schools and growing evidence for the benefits of small schools, especially for the achievement of low-income and minority students, have stimulated initiatives in many cities to redesign secondary education. This seven- year study of the Coalition Campus Schools Project in New York City documented a unique "birthing" process for new, small schools that were created as part of a network of reform-oriented schools in a context of systemwide reform. The study found that five new schools that were created to replace a failing comprehensive high school produced, as a group, substantially better attendance, lower incident rates, better performance on reading and writing assessments, higher graduation rates, and higher college-going rates than the previous school, despite serving a more educationally disadvantaged population of students. The schools shared a number of design features, detailed in this study, that appeared to contribute to these outcomes. The study also describes successful system-level efforts to leverage these innovations and continuing policy dilemmas influencing the long-term fate of reforms. (DIPF/Orig.).