Renewal: remaking America's schools for the twenty-first century

The Basics of School Reform. Management theory 101 ; Human relations 101 ; Politics 101.

Leaders. Superintendents ; Principals.

Teachers. A brave new world ; Keeping, and working with, those you have ; Training new (and more) teachers inside the system ; The rest of your life, good teachers can always get better: the professional learning community ; Training new (and more) teachers: working the pipeline into the classroom ; Creating more alternative training and certification programs ; What is a good teacher? : evaluation in a professional world ; Tenure ; Motivating teachers: is pay the be-all and end-all? ; The Colman Report effect on motivation: do teachers have low expectations of poor kids? ; The special challenge of hard-to-staff schools.

Customers. Do not lose sight of the student ; Seeing every child for who they are, not who we assume them to be: replacing one curriculum taught one way ; Ending a system designed to lose track of kids: paying attention to real students, not to the assumptions we make about them ; Assessing students: never letting them fall too far behind ; Parents: one half of a confused partnership ; Parents: long-ignored customers and owners.

The Template: the Things High-Performing Schools Have in Common. Six beliefs ; Eight practices ; A case study in what it takes to fail ; The things not done.

Beyond the School District: the Role of the States and Federal Government . The role of the states ; The role of the federal government.

The Future of the American Public School System. The education system we need, the system of schools we want.

The blueprint for action: an outline of what we need to do ; A proposed school "disclosure document".

pt. 1. The basics of school reform

pt. 2. Leaders

pt. 3. Teachers

pt. 4. Customers

pt. 5. The template: the things high-performing schools have in common

pt. 6. Beyond the school district : the role of the states and federal government.