There is no more urgent challenge on the Massachusetts education reform landscape than that of creating more effective, urban high schools. As a society, we have countless expectations for our high schools: They must educate all their students to high levels, build citizenship and employment skills, provide a broad general education while offering many opportunities for specialization, present a rich array of athletic and extra-curricular activities, implement programs designed to treat social problems like gang violence, teen pregnancy and AIDS while providing college and employment counseling, psychological guidance, driver education, school breakfast programs and health care.

Not surprisingly, most high schools have difficulty in performing well in all these roles, but those schools that serve the most disadvantaged children in our society have the greatest difficulty in effectively meeting the broad array of needs presented by their students.

In an era of high standards and increasing accountability, urban high schools have come in for particular attention as their students are most likely to have difficulty in meeting the learning standards now required for graduation. These challenged schools, often struggling with inadequate resources, are being asked to achieve an unprecedented goal: to educate all of their students to a level previously attained only by an elite few.

Concerned about their capacity to meet such an ambitious goal, the Center for Education Research and Policy at MassINC undertook a study, entitled "Head of the Class," designed to focus on the work of high-performing urban high schools. What we found was both alarming and heartening.

First, the alarm bells. In looking at high schools in communities with high proportions of low-income and minority youth, we could find only one, non-selective high school in which a significant majority of students consistently performed at high levels. University Park Campus School, a small school which is part of the Worcester Public Schools, is unique in its capacity to educate disadvantaged students to high levels.

That we could only find one such school in the entire state is truly alarming. Policy-makers and researchers need to apply urgent attention to this situation. Tens of thousands of students are systemically undereducated in Massachusetts, and we should address this challenge as a top school-reform priority.

We did find it heartening that our researchers could identify eight other, "higher" performing, urban high schools in which substantial numbers of students were achieving at high levels and progress is being made in closing the achievement gap.

When we looked more closely at all nine of the schools that emerged from this analysis, we did find some common characteristics and some cross-cutting themes worthy of policy consideration and future research. In other words, we have some clues as to what it takes to create schools that work for urban students, and these Massachusetts clues are consistent with the findings of national research on this topic.

In these schools, success appears to be related to the existence of small learning communities with high standards and clear expectations for all students; a personalized, supportive school culture; a tightly focused school curriculum coupled with teaching that responds to data on student performance; and strong, vital partnerships with parents, community, higher education and employers.

These characteristics may point the way for urban school reform, to making the University Park Campus School the exception rather than the rule. We need to know more before proceeding, and we need a sense of urgency among policy-makers and practitioners. Our state's new high, binding and consequential standards for graduation incur on the state an obligation to provide a quality educational opportunity for all of our students.

The evidence demonstrates that we are not now doing that for many of our urban high school students. We must do more. "Head of the Class" provides some hope and some knowledge with which to proceed. Even though historically and nationally high schools have proved stubbornly resistant to school reform, the commonwealth should strive to meet this challenge and set high standard for urban high schools, with all due speed.