ORLANDO--Getting high schools to adopt changes has been considered the hardest nut to crack in the education reform movement, but there were signs here for the nation's school administrators that high schools are on the move.

Several highlights of the annual conference of the American Association of School Administrators reported on significant restructuring in high schools. Still, it's tough to do, said Gordon Cawelti, consultant with the Educational Research Service. He conducted an "audit" of several schools considered pioneers in restructuring, evaluating them on such criteria as curriculum standards, active learning, work redesign, and technology.

Cawelti found:

• The high schools farthest along in restructuring activities are showing the most substantial gains in student achievement.
• A few schools are using strategies to create smaller, more personal environments such as grades 9-10 teams with limited numbers of students, house plans or acaxdemies within schools, and block schedules.
• The attitudes of teachers and students toward school is highly favorable and increases as changes are made; the block schedule was particuarly welcomed.
• The prevalent perception of students is that standards still are not very high and that they can get by with a minimum of effort.
• The schools tended to keep changing; some were in their second or third iteration of their change plan.

Smaller settings for students was used by Johns Hopkins University researchers to turn around a Baltimore city high school that was out of control. The 2,000-student high school was divided into five separate high schools with separate entrances and staff. One area was set aside for ninth graders. The remaining "schools" became career academies. Within one year, according to the researchers, attendance was up 10 percent, behavior problems were down, and the climate "had improved 100 percent."

The second stage of this plan, known as the Talent Development High School, is to work on the curriculum and standards and provide extensive professional development. Other sites in Baltimore are to be added to the project, as well as potential sites in the District of Columbia, Philadelphia and Chicago.

The Southern Regional Education Board's effort to transform high schools now includes more than 650 sites in 21 states, according to Gene Bottoms, vice president for education and work of the Board. The purpose of the network is to set high expectations for all students and integrate academic and vocational programs to help students be ready for more demanding workplaces.

Although schools tell him that they have eliminated tracking, Bottoms said that "it takes more than relabeling courses to replace the general track." Schools also must make changes in management and in teaching styles so that all students become engaged in quality work, he said. The big problem, he admitted, is that most educators, community leaders and parents only know the tracked system. "They have to come to grips with the fact that high-quality intellectual learning for all students" is not what happens in most high schools, he said.