These reform activists have become skeptical that the strategy of trying to transform urban high schools one by one has any chance of succeeding. They have seen poorly performing schools turned into good schools only to slip back into mediocrity and failure when the principal leaves or a new school board is elected. School boards, ignoring research and common sense, are commissioning new large, comprehensive high schools. Standardized testing has reached epidemic proportions. Urban districts have resegregated.
Tracking is alive and well.
And year after year, millions of young Americans drop out of school or graduate without the skills and knowledge they need to be productive workers and responsible citizens. Most painfully, these activists have watched good ideas and promising reforms be distorted in clumsy implementation. Standards-based reform offers great promise, for example, of making the system more equitable by holding high expectations for all children. But uneven and often thoughtless implementation is jeopardizing that promise and, these reformers fear, is imperiling the very schools that are succeeding with the most disadvantaged students. Some believe that what has been happening to young people in America's urban high schools is the greatest scandal of the 20th century.