Editors' Introduction
Sam Stringfield and John Hollifield

Our communication features from Mary Jean LeTendre, director of compensatory education of the U.S. Department of Education, and Mitzi Beach, president of the National Association of State Coordinators of Compensatory Education, share perspectives on the strengthening of ties between Title I schools and families. LeTendre focuses on family literacy, noting that an investment in the education of parents is an investment in the whole family and the future of that family, including the future of their children. Beach points out the importance of developing school-parent compacts that are explicit, allowing parents and/or guardians and school staff to demonstrate specific actions.

In the Barnstable High School P.M. Program case study, Sharon Inger describes one suburban high school’s approach to educating its population of high-risk students. Inger provides a reminder that many students are placed at risk in suburbia as well as in urban rural areas. With a nation struggling with a lack of successful models for improving at-risk high school students’ performance, Inger reminds us that success is possible.

Steven Ross and his colleagues provide data that are relevant both to Inger’s case and to JESPAR's previously published review of research on Success for All (Volume I, No. 1). By any measure, Success for All is among the most research-proven school restructuring designs. Ross et al. found that even when implementing a well-tested model, success is not assured. One school of a pair produced dramatic academic gains, the other much more modest gains. Differences in implementations became key in understanding results. One of the first rules taught in undergraduate courses on testing and measurement is that "reliability sets the upper boundary of validity." The Ross team’s results indicate that a similar rule can be identified in school restructuring: regardless of how valid a school reform program has been proven in other settings, if it isn’t implemented reliably, it won’t produce desired results. The actions of principals and faculties remain central to successful school improvement.

Elizabeth Useem and her colleagues, reviewing multiple evaluations of school reform efforts in Philadelphia, find that program implementation can be disrupted by numerous factors. Useem et al. search for themes to explain repeated partial-successes and substantial failures in well-intended, externally funded school reforms. In so doing, the authors provide a veritable catalogue of "what we have to remember while we are trying to successfully reform schools and systems."

This issue’s two book reviews both extend the range of topics covered in JESPAR. James Antony’s review of The influence of mentors on economically disadvantaged students’ college attendance decisions (Levine & Nidiffer, 1996) critiques a valuable book. Given that the income gap between college educated and non-college educated people in the U.S. has continued to widen in the 1990s, decisions about whether to graduate from high school and attend college are becoming more important every year. Providing mentors can be a valuable step in helping less advantaged young people make those choices.

Reviewing Silver Rights (Curry, 1995), Mavis Sanders examines the story of poor Mississippians’ attempts to obtain equal treatment under the law in the 1960s and 1970s. Sanders emphasizes how the book, focusing on the day-to-day trials and sacrifices of one family to achieve equal educational opportunity, enhances our understanding of the state, regional, and national struggles occurring at the time.

On a final note, Cary Berkeley, JESPAR's assistant editor, has worked with authors, organized systems, worked with production editors at Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, and generally moved things forward with great alacrity. Cary is returning to graduate school. As this introduction is being written, Cary is, with her usual level of professionalism, preparing Sam Kim to take over her considerable duties. We will miss Cary. We welcome Sam.