Ups, Downs of 10 High Schools Pursuing Reform Are Chronicled in Report

A new report sketches portraits of 10 high schools that are making progress in transforming themselves for the better.

The author of the study, Gordon Cawelti, a research consultant for the Arlington, Va.-based Educational Research Service, selected the schools from among 3,380 high schools nationwide that he surveyed in 1994. They were among the 10 percent to 15 percent of schools he found that were making comprehensive, multiple changes.

The schools range from Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, Calif., a 4,000-student school that has been divided into separate academies, to Hatboro-Horsham High School in Horsham, Pa., where the staff is moving to a block schedule and the school is forging links...