Imagine teams of high school educators — teachers, counselors, principals, central office leaders, curriculum specialists — working together to overcome the student achievement barriers of poverty, ethnicity, apathy, and inconsistencies in rigor and access to the curriculum in order to pursue the “ought-ness” of a better day. Imagine the adults in these schools working collaboratively to decide how to impact student achievement. Imagine student performance results on an upward trend of improvement unprecedented for the district. In 2003-04, the adults at Phoenix Union High School District in Phoenix, Ariz., and Grossmont Union High School District in eastern San Diego County, Calif., adopted this vision of a future “ought-ness.” Although many miles apart, these two high school districts were similar in demographics, number of schools, number