Introduction

In May 2002 the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution sponsored a two-day conference on the state of America's high schools. The discussion focused on new research about reform of these institutions that are so important in the lives of the nation's adolescents.

The participants considered the high school from a variety of perspectives—historical, international, sociological, and practical. The questions considered reflected the diversity of the participants' perspectives: How has the high school changed over time? What forces and ideas have promoted change? How does the American high school compare with similar institutions in other nations? What happens in high schools today to promote or suppress student achievement? What kinds of peer interactions create a culture that values achievement or one that spurns it? What accounts for the continuing gaps in achievement among students of different racial backgrounds? What can be done to reduce those gaps? How can high schools ensure that students are intellectually challenged? Is the high school as it has been known over the past century evolving? What reform strategies appear to be most promising in the near future?

For most of the twentieth century, the American high school suffered a prolonged identity crisis, much like the adolescents whom it serves. In the late nineteenth century, going to high school was still a fairly unusual experience. Most youngsters left school at the end of eighth grade and joined the work force or helped out at home or on the family farm. The high school at that time was widely perceived to be a college preparatory institution, and college was not necessary for entry to anything other than the learned professions. Less than 5 percent of adolescents attended high school in 1895, and even fewer went to college. In some towns and cities, until the 1920s, admission to high school was based on examinations. So long as the high school was considered a selective, college preparatory institution, its identity and its purposes were clear. The high school curriculum was determined largely by college admission requirements, which stressed mathematics, foreign languages, and close reading of literary classics. This curriculum set the pattern for almost all students, whether or not they intended to go to college.

The purposes of the high school became a matter for debate as high school enrollments spiraled upward. Beginning in 1880, the number of students who attended high school doubled every decade until 1930. In part this remarkable increase was driven by the growth of the population, but it far exceeded the rate of increase of the high school-age population. In 1900 about 10 percent of fourteen- to seventeen-year-olds were in high school; by 1930 nearly half of the age group attended high school.

Educators understood that the high school was changing from an elite institution to a mass institution, and they vigorously disagreed about what high schools should do. Almost all concurred that expansion of the high school was a good thing for a democratic society, but they parted company over how the high schools should meet the needs of a democratic society. Some maintained that the high school should offer the same academic programs, the same educational experiences to all students, regardless of their ultimate educational or occupational destination. This was the proper route for a democratic institution.

Other educators, who eventually prevailed, insisted that the high school in a democratic society should offer an academic education only for the few bound for college and an appropriate vocational education for the great majority heading for the workplace and homemaking. As enrollments expanded in the 1920s and 1930s, most high schools adopted a differentiated curriculum, with separate programs for future farmers, industrial workers, automobile mechanics, domestic workers, clerks, housewives, technicians, and other occupations. Few high schools attempted to provide a common academic experience for all students. Eventually, most students chose one of three tracks: academic, vocational, or general (which was neither academic nor vocational). The students' choices were influenced (or constrained) by guidance counselors, whose advice was based...