Few would disagree with the notion that low-income children face enormous challenges outside the traditional school system in achieving academic success. Research has confirmed the role of everything from health to summer learning opportunities, along with school-based factors including teacher and principal quality, in student achievement.

Edutopia's first Schools That Work installment about comprehensive assessment focuses on a New York City school that has changed the game of student assessment. Think: more rigorous, more relevant, more fun.

While that may not sound terribly sexy, don't be fooled. These techniques -- and what New York's Manhattan-based School of the Future has achieved with them -- have the potential to change the way we understand and learn from our successes and failures.

How?