This book is about deep change. In a series of research reports andcommentaries, it mainly features case studies of powerful reform for themost part in local districts and in individual schools. They are set withinthe constraints of obvious political realities, essentially the recently legislatedand bureaucratically enforced dimensions of high-stakes accountability.In this book, educational practice does not flow only from theory;neither does theory evolve only from educational practice. Rather, practiceand theory fruitfully interact, not just some of the time, but most ofthe time. These accounts of deep change, moreover, are written gracefully,in understandable prose, and largely absent the barnacles of breathlessadvocacy. To be sure, the accounts are uneven, not as a function oftheir quality which uncommonly is high, but as a function of their foci andperceived attractiveness