"American education could be getting far more than it is from its teachers, and from our young people. But only when it accepts that it has a design problem, and broadens its concept of change. Today the dominant idea is to drive standards and assessment into the existing inert system, in the hope this will get schools, teachers and students to improve their performance ... while not challenging what makes K-12 an inert system. The effort to 'do' improvement is good, but is only half a strategy. The idea should be to make K-12 a self-improving system, by introducing arrangements that encourage districts and teachers to try things outside the traditional givens of system and school. This book sets out an education policy aimed to get K-12 evolving the way successful systems evolve; with non-traditional arrangements and approaches to learning spreading gradually. Realistically, visibly, that is the way successful systems change"--