ABSTRACT
This chapter chronicles how very real pressures and multiple innovations impacted and skewed the implementation of what was touted as primarily a gender reform at one California public middle school. A reconstituted school, boys and girls were divided into separate classes; full inclusion of special education students and blocking of core academic classes were implemented at the same time. These simultaneous innovations, along with the current realities of public schooling—a teaching staff overwhelmingly made up of new teachers, some certified, many on emergency waivers; a student population highly at risk in terms of socioeconomic indicators and past school performance, and a school under great pressure to raise its standardized test scores—diverted time and attention away from the exploration and implementation of gender reform although it had been announced as the school's primary reform effort.
