This book is about deep change. In a series of research reports and commentaries, it mainly features case studies of powerful reform for the most part in local districts and in individual schools. They are set within the constraints of obvious political realities, essentially the recently legislated and bureaucratically enforced dimensions of high-stakes accountability. In this book, educational practice does not flow only from theory; neither does theory evolve only from educational practice. Rather, practice and theory fruitfully interact, not just some of the time, but most of the time. These accounts of deep change, moreover, are written gracefully, in understandable prose, and largely absent the barnacles of breathless advocacy. To be sure, the accounts are uneven, not as a function of their quality which uncommonly is high, but as a function of their foci and perceived attractiveness

This book is about deep change. In a series of research reports and commentaries, it mainly features case studies of powerful reform for the most part in local districts and in individual schools. They are set within the constraints of obvious political realities, essentially the recently legislated and bureaucratically enforced dimensions of high-stakes accountability. In this book, educational practice does not flow only from theory; neither does theory evolve only from educational practice. Rather, practice and theory fruitfully interact, not just some of the time, but most of the time. These accounts of deep change, moreover, are written gracefully, in understandable prose, and largely absent the barnacles of breathless advocacy. To be sure, the accounts are uneven, not as a function of their quality which uncommonly is high, but as a function of their foci and perceived attractiveness