The comprehensive high school, once lauded as a symbol of education in a democratic society, is in serious trouble.
Critics claim that the many of the schools are too large, too bureaucratic, and too impersonal.
Performance on state assessments has shown little improvement over the past decade in many of our major cities and gains made at the elementary level are seldom sustained into high school. Since minority students tend to be concentrated in urban high schools, the poor conditions and poor performance of these institutions contributes to the achievement gaps that persist among social and racial groups in the nation. National commissions and task forces have called for high school reform since the 1970's, but little seems to have been accomplished. The states introduced increased course requirements for graduation in the 1980's, and more recently, many states have adopted graduation tests. But the standards remain low because high failure rates are politically unacceptable.