Get important education news and analysis delivered straight to your inbox

Choose as many as you want(Required)

Weekly Update

Elementary to High School

Higher Education

Proof Points

Climate Change

Early Childhood

Email(Required)

CAPTCHA

Ninth grade students organize nuts and bolts the day after their end-of-the-year showcase in which they flew their school-made drones for parents and visitors. — Ninth grade students at High Tech High School organize nuts and bolts the day after their end-of-the-year showcase in which they flew their school-made drones for parents and visitors. Credit: Andra Cernavskis

There’s a big push on right now to improve U.S. high schools, with everyone from politicians to educators and foundations and corporations weighing in.

It’s a topic we care a great deal about here at The Hechinger Report as well, and we’ve been traveling across the U.S. in search of fresh thinking and approaches that might work, as well as visiting high schools to see some of the new plans and ideas in progress.

We welcome op-ed’s and suggestions about schools to visit, and voices from the classroom and beyond.

Hechinger Report editor Liz Willen recently appeared on the podcast “How do we fix it,’’ to discuss some of our findings. You can listen here:

Stay up to date on K-12 education

We take you inside school districts and classrooms weekly to see how K-12 education is changing and how it can be strengthened.

Email(Required)

CAPTCHA

Since you made it to the bottom of this article, we have a small favor to ask.

If you believe stories like the one you just finished matter, please consider pitching in what you can. This effort helps ensure our reporting and resources stay free and accessible to everyone—teachers, parents, policymakers—invested in the future of education.

Donate now

Thank you.
Liz Willen
Editor in chief

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

We offer all nonexclusive stories under a noncommercial Creative Commons license. You are allowed to repost or reprint our stories as long as you use the guidelines below. See here for more details. If you have questions or would like to discuss commercial use, please contact us. If you would like to republish the photos that accompanied this story, please contact us.

What can be done about failing U.S. high schools? A look back and ahead

by Hechinger Report, The Hechinger Report
July 21, 2016

<h1>What can be done about failing U.S. high schools? A look back and ahead</h1>
<p class="byline">by Hechinger Report, The Hechinger Report <br />July 21, 2016</p>

<div class="wp-block-image wp-caption">
<figure class="alignright is-resized"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Cernavskis-HighTechHigh-1.jpg?ssl=1"><img src="https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Cernavskis-HighTechHigh-1.jpg?resize=960%2C640&amp;ssl=1" alt="Ninth grade students organize nuts and bolts the day after their end-of-the-year showcase in which they flew their school-made drones for parents and visitors." class="wp-image-22805" height="640" width="960" /></a><figcaption>Ninth grade students at High Tech High School organize nuts and bolts the day after their end-of-the-year showcase in which they flew their school-made drones for parents and visitors.</figcaption></figure>
</div>
<p>There’s a big push on right now to improve U.S. high schools, with everyone from politicians to educators and foundations and corporations weighing in.</p>
<p>It’s a <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/high-school-reform/">topic</a> we care a great deal about here at <em>The Hechinger Report </em>as well, and we’ve been traveling across the U.S. in search of fresh thinking and approaches that might work, as well as visiting high schools to see some of the new plans and ideas in progress.</p>
<p><a href="https://hechingerreport.org/improving-lackluster-u-s-high-schools-why-its-not-too-little-or-too-late/">Related: Improving lackluster U.S. high schools: Why it’s not too little or too late</a></p>
<p>We welcome op-ed’s and suggestions about schools to visit, and voices from the classroom and beyond.</p>
<p><em>Hechinger Report </em>editor <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/author/liz-willen/">Liz Willen</a> recently appeared on the <a href="http://linkis.com/www.howdowefixit.me/v8WEX">podcast&nbsp; “How do we fix it,’’</a> to discuss some of our findings. You can listen <a href="http://linkis.com/www.howdowefixit.me/v8WEX">here:</a></p>
<figure></figure>
<p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://hechingerreport.org/what-can-be-done-about-failing-u-s-high-schools-a-look-back-and-ahead/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://hechingerreport.org&quot;&gt;The Hechinger Report&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?fit=150%2C150&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;</p>
&lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://hechingerreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=28705&amp;amp;ga4=G-03KPHXDF3H&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://hechingerreport.org/what-can-be-done-about-failing-u-s-high-schools-a-look-back-and-ahead/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hechingerreport.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;