ABSTRACT
Successful schools for young adolescents pose a challenge. The presence of these schools creates personal disequilibrium that leads either to denial or learning. There is no simple cause-and-effect model to account for successful schools for young adolescents. Explanations seem circular. For instance, stable student attendance is a prerequisite for success in learning; success in learning leads to high attendance rates. In most schools for young adolescents, two areas of confusion and ignorance converge: confusion about the purposes of schooling and ignorance about early adolescence as a critical developmental stage in the life span. Each one stands for something special, whether it is being the best in the county, desegregation, diversity, or the arts. Each has a mission and knows what it is, and in each case it is both academic and social. The schools make powerful statements, both in word and in practice, about their purposes.
