Part I. Reflecting. Introduction: Failure in urban American high schools ; What we see versus what we seek : faces of failure in urban high schools ; How we got here : tracing the origins of high school failure ; What we now know about learning -- Part II. Studying failure. Looking closely at failure : fourteen students in three urban high schools ; 10,000 ways that won't work : the frustration of academic failure ; Falling into an abyss : the role of grading in student failure ; Credits are no joke : remediation and recovery structures across three schools ; Teacher practices that support student effort -- Part III. Going forward. Motivation, capacity, competence, opportunity : redesigning urban high schools for student success.