GROWING SMALLER - 3 TASKS IN RESTRUCTURING URBAN HIGH-SCHOOLS

Demoralized by high failure rates, unwieldy bureaucracies, and entrenc hed adversarial relationships, urban school populations struggle in ha rsh conditions. In this article, the authors offer a framework, derive d from 5 years of ethnographic research in Philadelphia high schools, to illuminate the vision and labor necessary to make urban school refo rm both systemic and doable. They identify and describe three tasks-bu ilding community, generating knowledge about change, and reinventing c urriculum-as essential for engaging participants with the substance of education. These tasks encompass the work of changing the culture of teaching and learning.