This ground-breaking volume provides a detailed glimpse of the individual workings of these influential organizations and, more importantly, how they combined efforts to uncover the craft of school reform—what teachers, administrators, and staff developers actually do to provoke and support change. Through personal interviews with Janet Whitla, James Comer, Howard Gardner, Theodore Sizer, and others, you will hear the voices of renowned reformers telling another side of the school reform story to complement the policy side. It’s about networks of people working behind the scenes—working closely with teachers and schools over many years. This honest account, by reformers on the "inside," is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand American school reform at the end of the twentieth century.

"As the principal investigators for this effort, we hope the reader will gain from this volume what we have gained from several years of exploring the meaning of our partnerships to create ATLAS: a much expanded view of the many valid but different starting points, strategies, and moves that organizations can adopt to reach the common goal of a good education for all our children."
—From the Afterword by Janet Whitla (EDC), James Comer (SDP), Howard Gardner (PZ), and Theodore Sizer (CES)