I am an historian of education who also studies contemporary educational policy. I began my professional life as a student of 19th century social and political history, then shifted gears in 1980 when I joined Theodore Sizer's A Study of High Schools, where I wrote The Last Little Citadel: American High Schools since 1940 (Houghton Mifflin, 1986). Since then my historical writing probes the origins of current policy issues, and my policy analysis is informed by an historian's interest in the nature of change over time. I've concentrated on the "restructuring" of American high schools, especially the schools affiliated with Sizer's Coalition of Essential Schools. I examine how the ideals of reform play out in practice by studying the twists and turns of implementation. A coauthored book, Kids and School Reform (Jossey-Bass, 1997) scrutinized five Coalition high schools, and two of the articles linked to this page drew from my research for that book.