It looks like some great stuff in going on in Mapleton, thanks to support from the Gates Foundation.  As I noted above, in addition to giving parents CHOICES, here's the other key:

The most encouraging development may be that all this reform has acted as a magnet in attracting energetic, well-qualified leaders and teachers to Mapleton. Ciancio was able to hire Michael Johnston, 31, a bright Yale Law School grad, to lead MESA, for instance. Johnston, who's devoting his career to school reform, previously taught in Mississippi, before leading another small school.

Similarly, Marc Dysart, who teaches algebra at Welby New Technology, has an engineering degree, and was teaching at a posh private school before coming to Mapleton. "I was looking for a small public high school," he says, that was committed to producing better results. And many more teachers are giving Mapleton a look. At a recent job fair, a long line formed in front of Mapleton's table. "At first, we thought they were in the wrong line because we'd never seen that many people interested in working in Mapleton," says Michael Kirby, one of Ciancio's key lieutenants."But they were in the right line."

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A School Makeover in Mapleton

A school district outside Denver has galvanized students and parents with a daring experiment in public school choice

http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/jun2006/pi20060615_730385.htm

This spring, Charlotte Ciancio, the feisty superintendent of Mapleton Public Schools, held a series of open houses for parents in her district, which serves 5,800 students just north of Denver. In previous years, Ciancio's meetings had attracted only a handful of people. But this spring, more than 1,000 people packed the sessions. The reason: They were eager to learn about what may be the nation’s most radical experiment in public school choice.

Few school districts have ever gone as far as Mapleton has over the past two years in providing choices for students. Take high school. For decades, once students finished eighth grade in Mapleton, they automatically went on to Skyview High, a sprawling, traditional comprehensive high school. No more. The old Skyview is being phased out, and will no longer exist after its last class graduates next year.

In its place, Mapleton has created six small high schools scattered around the district. From now on, every eighth grader must choose among these six schools. There's no such thing as a default option. And this fall, similar choice will be extended to elementary and middle-school students, as well. In all, Mapleton now offers parents and students 17 schools, up from just seven before the reform began.

BACKED BY THE GATESES.  By the standards of U.S. school reform, this is revolutionary change. And it's a revolution that's being financed by Bill and Melinda Gates. Their foundation is backing all of the high school "models" that have been brought into Mapleton. Those include two small schools affiliated with the Big Picture Co.; Welby New Technology, which is modeled on Napa Valley's famed New Technology High School; and Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts (MESA), based on a model that grew out of Outward Bound. Then last December, the Gates Foundation gave Mapleton a $2.7 million grant to help it manage all this change...