In 1998 a tenth common principle was added: "the school should demonstrate … inclusive policies (and) model democratic practices … explicitly challenging all forms of inequity and discrimination" (Coalition of Essential Schools pamphlet, The Ten Common Principles, 1998).
The initial group of twelve schools included several that have gained substantial public visibility, such as Central Park East Secondary School in East Harlem, New York, designed and launched by Deborah Meier; and Thayer High School in Winchester, New Hampshire, "redesigned" by Dennis Littky. Others such as the R. L. Paschal Essential School in Fort Worth, Texas, a small, autonomous unit embedded within the larger Paschal High School, survived and flourished by keeping a very low profile. As others joined, many had difficulty with what emerged as the two hardest principles to put into effect, the diploma based on a public "Exhibition" and the "no more than 80-1 student-teacher ratio." The Brown-based staff observed and reported on these matters, for example, in the former case with workshops, pamphlets, and books by Grant Wiggins and Joseph McDonald; and in the latter with Sizer's Horace's School (the chronicle of a fictional school, drawn with CES experience in mind, in employing the common principles) and Horace's Hope (the author's take on what he had seen and what independent evidence arising from the work suggested). Overall, the instability of leadership and of the "system's" own directions made the prospect of quick, uncontroversial, and sustained reform difficult.
From 1988 to 1993 CES engaged in a major joint effort with the Education Commission of the States and several of its member states in the Re:Learning project, an effort to connect the grassroots work of Essential Schools with policy reform consistent with CES and CES-like efforts. A substantive and positive residue of Re:Learning was the creation of state-based "centers," usually funded by a mix of private and public money, to forward the work. Political instability, however, made major, highly visible, coordinated restructuring "from the schoolhouse to the state house" largely unsuccessful. In 1990 CES joined the ATLAS Communities Project, one of the New American School efforts, joining with Yale University's School Development Project, directed by James Comer; Harvard Project Zero, directed by Howard Gardner; and the Education Development Center, led by Janet Whitla. ATLAS activities have been funded largely at the federal and district levels.
In 1997 and on the retirement of Sizer from Brown University, CES, now numbering more than 1,000 members, established itself as a not-for-profit organization based in Oakland, California. Much of the close-in work earlier carried out by the Brown staff was shifted to state and regional "centers," these being themselves not-for-profit entities. An executive board, drawn from the member schools and the centers, directs CES's national voice, coordination, and program assessment efforts. A major independent study of "fully articulated" Essential schools (that is, those that have been able to actualize all the common principles) was underway in the early twenty-first century.
See also: Coalition of Essential Schools; Secondary Education, subentry on Current Trends; School Reform.
Hampel, Robert L. 1986. The Last Little Citadel: American High Schools since 1940. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Kammeraad-Campbell, Susan. 1989. Doc: The Story of Dennis Littky and His Fight for a Better School. Chicago: Contemporary Books.
MacMullen, Margaret M. 1996. Taking Stock of a School Reform Effort: A Research Collection and Analysis. Providence, RI: Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
Meier, Deborah. 1995. The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem. Boston: Beacon.
Muncey, Donna E., and McQuillan, Patrick J. 1996. Reform and Resistance in Schools and Classrooms. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Nehring, James. 2002. Upstart Startup: Creating and Sustaining a Public Charter School. New York: Teachers College Press.
Powell, Arthur G.; Farrar, Eleanor; and Cohen, David K. 1985. The Shopping Mall High School: Winners and Losers in the Educational Marketplace. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Sizer, Theodore R. 1984. Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Sizer, Theodore R. 1992. Horace's School: Redesigning the American High School. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Sizer, Theodore R. 1996. Horace's Hope: What Works for the American High School. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Wasley, Patricia A. 1994. Stirring the Chalkdust. New York: Teachers College Press.
Wasley, Patricia A.; Hampel, Robert L.; and Clark, Richard W. 1997. Kids and School Reform. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.