http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the-writing-revolution/309090/3/?single_page=true
This is a story about a school on Staten Island that was about to be shutdown and turned everything around by teaching writing. I can remember as a young teacher having arguments about my school needing a unified writing curriculum between the English and history departments. I stressed the need to teach the formula at first so that students could break the formula later. I ran into opposition from English teachers who hated formula and history teachers who felt they didn't know how to teach writing. When we moved to our current school we embraced - at least briefly - a comprehensive writing approach.
And that's pretty much what turned this school around.
I've always felt that the "collapse of American public education" has always been overstated but there is clearly a great deal of room for improvement.
This might be a key component.
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