Seventeen schools shared the secrets to their success with hundreds of highly motivated educators as principals, teachers, assistant principals, and students spent the day learning from one another about what made their schools successful.  The session with Brockton (MA) High School, which really has made achievement for ALL students a reality, made me wonder why it--or another of the showcase schools--wasn't singled out as an example of the US school system instead of the Rhode Island high school where the entire staff was fired.  The success of a school like Brockton, which has 73% poverty, high diversity, and a history of poor performance but has made remarkable improvements using literacy and writing as a lever, is worth talking about. Brockton has made AYP for several years and is matching or exceeding the state average on the MA tests; what's happening there really does contains lessons about how schools can go through the process of change that makes them successful.

Long after the school showcase sessions ended, participants remained clustered together in spontaeous groups talking about standards-based grading, the power of collaborative teaching, and many more topics. 

Maybe using the lessons from such schools would make it possible to do something more constructive in the way of improvement than firing a school full of educators.