District/Community Alliances to Transform High Schools: Lessons Learned from California's High School Pupil Success Act

The High School Pupil Success Act (HSPSA), a unique public-private partnership between the State of California, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with additional support from the Walter S. Johnson and Hewlett Foundations, provided funds, a framework and a support structure for eleven very different school districts1 and their community partners to develop plans for high school transformation. HSPSA districts varied greatly in size and context, encompassing rural, urban and suburban communities. The range included a rural, one high school district on an Indian Reservation in Northern California, a largely suburban, two high school district near the Bay area, and two “mini” districts within the state’s largest school district in Southern California. HSPSA was inspired by the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Schools for a New Society Initiative, a five-year large-scale effort that began in 2001 to reinvent secondary schools in seven urban communities.

This document is organized into two distinct but overlapping sections — 1) our reflections on the process and structure of the HSPSA initiative; and 2) a discussion of key successes and challenges as they played out on the ground. (We have also included an Appendix which summarizes what each site considers their major accomplishments.) In reflecting on the initiative we describe the fairly unique niche that HSPSA occupies in the landscape of school reform efforts, and discuss those features of the process we feel contributed to site successes. In highlighting the work of individual sites, our goal is not to portray them as up as ideal examples of district level reform but rather to illustrate the complexity of the work and in the process, recognize the successes and challenges that these very different districts faced along the way.