forum

The American High School
Can it be saved?

The Traditional High School
Historical debates over its nature and function
By Jeffrey Mirel

A “Comprehensive” Problem
The disconnect between fantasy and reality
By Jay P. Greene

Things Are Falling Apart
Can the center find a solution that will hold?
By Chester E. Finn Jr.

features

Surviving a Midlife Crisis
Advanced placement turns fifty
By Andrew Mollison

The Adolescent Society
James Coleman’s still-prescient insights
By James S. Coleman

A Foundation Goes to School
Bill and Melinda Gates shift from computers in libraries to reform in high schools
By Paul T. Hill

research

“Acting White”
The social price paid by the best and brightest minority students
By Roland G. Fryer

World Wide Wonder?
Measuring the (non-)impact of Internet subsidies to public schools
By Austan Goolsbee and Jonathan Guryan

Friendly Competition
Does the presence of charters spur public schools to improve?
By George M. Holmes, Jeff DeSimone and Nicholas G. Rupp

from the editors

High-School Headache
An institution that works neither for the “talented tenth” nor those at greatest risk
By Paul E. Peterson

the legal beat

No Lawsuit Left Behind
Chief Justice Roberts, the schoolmaster?
By Michael Heise

correspondence

Checking NYC's Facts
New York’s adequacy case; underground education; North Carolina charters; the Bloomberg revolution

book reviews

If the World Is Flat
A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
By Michael J. Petrilli

Sex, Drugs—And More Sex and Drugs
I Am Charlotte Simmons by TOM WOLFE Prep by CURTIS SITTENFELD
By Diane Ravitch

Color Me Purple
Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by MICA POLLOCK
By Nathan Glazer

BOOK ALERT

school life

Foundations Matter
A Detroit boy works to fix the public schools
By Eli Broad