High school transformation: core principles: partners of the National High School Alliance have developed an action plan that provides research-based strategies for creating lasting change.

As influential voices from the nation's public and private sectors call for an urgent re-assessment of the traditional, comprehensive American public high school, leaders at all levels have important roles to play in the challenge put forth by the National High School Alliance and other leading organizations: to ensure that high schools prepare all youth for success in post-secondary education, in careers, and as active participants in civic life.

High school administrators have a particularly critical role to play. As leaders on the ground in their schools, administrators see the challenges and successes of high school transformation directly. Administrators have the potential to create lasting change in their high schools, and that will truly improve the outcomes for youth in their communities.

The National High School Alliance, housed at the Institute for Educational Leadership in Washington, D.C., is an unprecedented partnership of nearly 50 organizations representing tens of thousands of education leaders nationwide and a broad range of expertise on high school and youth-related issues.

The HS Alliance includes leaders of organizations representing high school redesign models, school and district practitioners, assessment and curriculum developers, career and technical education, alternative education, youth development, youth with disabilities, community organizers and many others.

The partners of the HS Alliance share a vision for a nationwide commitment to fostering high academic achievement, closing the achievement gap, and promoting civic and personal growth among all youth in our high schools and communities. To advance this vision, the HS Alliance's mission is to engage its partners to work individually and collectively to inform policy, practice and research, and to promote public awareness and engagement.

To guide their engagement in high school improvement efforts, school administrators can use the framework and recommended strategies for effective policy and practice outlined in "A Call to Action: Transforming High School for All Youth," developed and released by the HS Alliance in April 2005.

"A Call to Action" is the product of intensive work among the partners, since the Alliance's founding three years ago, to bring their best thinking to bear on how to raise academic achievement, close the minority achievement gap, and nurture the social and personal development for all of our nation's youth. Their work is based on their research and experience with both policy and practice.

At the framework's center is what the HS Alliance asserts must be the purpose of high school: to prepare all students for success in college, careers and active civic participation. It lays out a framework of six core principles and recommended strategies to guide leaders at all levels in this difficult work.

The HS Alliance recognizes that accomplishing this bold mission will require consistent commitment and effort among decision-makers for a decade or more. "A Call to Action" is a powerful document because it articulates the emerging national consensus in the field about the elements of successful high schools, and establishes a framework for action around which to engage stakeholders at all levels in the hard work of transforming high schools for all youth.

Core principles

The HS Alliance believes that there is no one-size-fits-all model that will be effective and sustainable in all contexts. Thus, the framework provides a set of core principles around which a broad range of context-specific designs and strategies can be interpreted to meet local needs.

These principles, however, are nonnegotiable. To create deep and lasting change, all six core principles must be addressed. The principles are interdependent and must function as part of a comprehensive plan focused on ensuring that all students are ready for college, careers and active civic participation.

For each core principle in "A Call to Action," specific strategies are recommended. The strategies represent the partners' research- and implementation-based knowledge of the effective policies and practices that drive the transformation of high schools.

The six core principles are:

1. Personalized learning environments

2. Academic engagement of all students

3. Empowered educators

4. Accountable leaders

5. Engaged community and youth

6. Integrated system of high standards, curriculum, instruction, assessments and supports

A comprehensive approach to change

The release of "A Call to Action" is timely. High school reform initiatives recently launched by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Governors' Association, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other policy organizations and foundations have significantly increased the sense of urgency among policymakers, practitioners and the general public.

The "Call to Action" framework helps educators respond to this urgency in a way that resists prescriptive, quick-fix, top-down policy solutions, and encourages a comprehensive, collaborative approach to change.

Dissemination and outreach activities have been vigorous since its release. Approximately 10,000 copies have been disseminated and thousands have been downloaded from the Web site. The document is being requested for presentations, and has been used as a national consensus document by leaders at the national, state, district, school and community levels to inform policy, practice, research and public engagement.

Making the framework "actionable"

To help leaders make the document "actionable," the HS Alliance is currently developing a reader that will provide access to a broad range of resources for planning and implementing systemic high school redesign. The "Call to Action Reader" will include resources for leaders at all levels, including school administrators, that will bring the core principles of the "Call to Action" to life.

Through this online resource, high school administrators will be able to access case studies and other examples of schools and districts that have implemented the principles successfully.

It will also include research, resources and tools from HS Alliance partners and other organizations to guide school administrators in the process of implementing the recommended strategies. The "Call to Action Reader" will be available on the HS Alliance Web site (www.hsalliance.org) in June 2006.

High schools an important part of the solution

Though the education system cannot be expected to absorb or solve all of society's problems, the transformation of the traditional American high school--an institutional structure that has remained relatively unchanged for nearly a century--can be an important part of the solution.

School administrators have an important role to play in the hard work of transforming the high school, and all of the interrelated systems that support the vitality of a community and its youth, to meet the needs of the ever-changing world in which we live.

Naomi Housman is director of the National High School Alliance (www.hsalliance.org). Betsy Brand, director of the American Youth Policy Forum, is the chair of the steering committee. For more information, contact the staff of the National High School Alliance at [e-mail], or call [phone].