1. Chapter 3
1.1. Education systems are too complex and adapting (64).
1.1.1. "In education, there's an abundance of emergent features right now that are changing the context in which schools work and the cultures within them" (64).
1.1.2. "Virtually every day there are new tools for learning and creative work in all sort of disciplines, and new programs and platforms that can help to customize education for every learner" (65).
1.1.3. "The dynamics and aesthetics of digital gaming can be harnessed with powerful results to energize and enliven learning across the whole curriculum" (65).
1.1.4. "Parents who are anxious about the effects of the industrial education of their children are increasingly taking matters into their own hands" (65).
1.1.5. Success of the Arts in Schools project (68-69).
2. Chapter 5
2.1. "The heart of educational improvement is inspiring students to learn, which is what great teachers do" (100).
2.1.1. "...compared studies from around the world of the factors that influence student achievement...one of the most important factors is teachers' expectations of them" (100-101).
2.1.2. "When those other tasks distract from that job [facilitating learning], the real character of the teaching profession is obscured" (101).
2.1.3. "Expert teachers fulfill four main roles: engage, enable, expect, and empower" (104).
2.2. Creativity in classrooms must accompany a greater understanding of concepts and practices (103).
2.2.1. "Creative work in any domain involves increasing control of the knowledge, concepts, and practices that have shaped that domain and a deepening understanding of the traditions and achievements in which it is based" (103).
2.2.2. "There are two complementary ways of engaging students in the arts: 'making'--the product of their own work; and 'appraising'--understanding and appreciating the work of others" (103).
3. Chapter 7
3.1. "Standardized testing has become an obsession" (160).
3.1.1. Students "spend much of their time at school sitting at their desks preparing for, taking, or debriefing from tests" (161).
3.1.2. Benchmarks, monthly exams...cheaply made assessments that are supposed to tell leaders how students will perform on state exams (161).
3.1.3. "Pressure to boost scores on standardized tests has reduced the range of assessments teachers use" (161).
3.1.4. "These tests measure nothing of value," said John Katzman, co-founder of the Princeton Review (164).
3.2. "An assessment has two components: a description and a comparison" (170).
3.2.1. "Assessments compare individual performances with others and rate them against particular criteria" (170).
3.2.2. "Students are sometimes given grades without really knowing what they mean, and teachers sometimes give grades without being completely sure why" (171).
4. Chapter 9
4.1. "Parents' engagement in their children's education has a direct relationship to motivation and achievement, regardless of socio-economic standing or cultural background" (209).
4.1.1. "When parents 'talk to their children about school, expect them to do well, help them plan for college, and make sure that out-of-school activities are constructive,their children do better in school'" (210).
4.1.2. 2010 report from University of Chicago found that "elementary schools with strong family engagement were ten times more likely to improve in math and four times more likely to improve in reading than schools weak in this measure" (210).
4.2. Schools are not capitalizing on community members and parents' expertise (212).
4.2.1. Lou's writing sessions with his younger daughter's school (211-212).
4.2.2. Blue School partnership between family and schools (215).
5. Chapter 4
5.1. Academic studies by themselves are not sufficient for students' education today (77).
5.1.1. "Human intelligence embraces much more than academic ability: it suffuses all the achievements that are manifest in the arts, sports, technology, business, engineering, and the host of other vocations to which people who are alert to them may devote their time and lives" (77).
5.1.2. Lena becoming a hairdresser out of necessity to select a job (80).
5.1.3. Everton Free School (charter schools of the UK) 82.
5.1.4. IQ tests and their misleading implications of human intelligence (86).
5.1.5. "Look around. The diversity of intelligence is everywhere" (87).
5.2. Children are natural learners (84).
5.2.1. Young humans "see it [the world] through frameworks of ideas and values" (85).
5.2.2. "As they grow up, children learn as we all do that they live not in one world but two...there is also a world that exists only because you exist: the world of your private consciousness" (85).
5.3. Learning at different rates requires teachers to adapt the schedule (90).
5.3.1. "Low achievement can lead to low expectations, which can have a debilitating effect on a student's entire school career" (90).
5.3.2. "Different activities need more or less time than others" (91).
6. Chapter 1
6.1. Education has huge implications for economic prosperity (8).
6.1.1. "In the US alone, education and training cost $632 billion in 2013" (8).
6.1.2. "In the process, economic competition has intensified in trade, manufacturing, and services" (8).
6.2. The standards movement isn't working as intended (13).
6.2.1. "In 2012, 17% of HS graduates in the US were unable to read or write fluently and had basic problems with spelling, grammar, and punctuation (below level 2 on the PISA scales)" (14).
6.2.2. "More tha 50% of adults were below level 3 of literacy" (13).
6.2.3. "21% of young adults aged 18-24 could not identify the Pacific Ocean on the map" (13).
6.2.4. "Youth unemployment around the world is at record levels. 23 million ppl between 15-24 are long-term unemployed" (13).
7. Chapter 2
7.1. Mass education has strong social purposes (33).
7.1.1. "In the US, it was intended to produce an educated citizenry for the well-being of democracy" (33).
7.1.2. "For many, education was a means of promoting social opportunity and equity" (33).
7.1.3. "There are three cultural priorities for schools: to help students understand their own cultures, to understand other cultures, and to promote a sense of cultural tolerance and coexistence. To achieve these objectives, schools need a broad-based, rich curriculum, not a narrow, impoverished one. The standards movement doesn't begin to engage with these complexities" (50).
7.2. Education represents an industrial structure/focus (33-34).
7.2.1. "Mass education was built like a pyramid, with a broad base of compulsory elementary education for all, a smaller sector of secondary education, and a narrow apex of higher education" (34).
7.2.2. "In most countries, there were different types of secondary school: those with a mainly academic curriculum and those with a more practical bias"(34).
7.2.3. "Industrial processes demand compliance with specific rules and standards" (35).
7.2.4. "There are variations in national systems, but in most of them periodic tests determine who goes down which route and when" (35).
7.3. Students' individual talents take many forms and they should be fostered in similarly diverse ways (36).
7.3.1. "A narrow view of conformity inevitably creates enormous numbers of nonconformists who may be rejected by the system or be earmarked for remedial treatment" (36).
7.3.2. "In practice, different students learn at different rates in different disciplines. A child with natural ability in one area may struggle in another" (37).
7.3.3. "Most industrial processes generate huge amounts of waste and low-value by-products. As we've seen, they include dropping out, disengagement, low self-esteem, and limited employment opportunities" (38).
8. Chapter 6
8.1. Schools need a curriculum so they can work out how to use their resources and how to arrange everyone's use of time and space (131).
8.1.1. "Typically, schools divide the day into units of time and allocate them to each of the subjects" (131).
8.1.2. Reference to the US hierarchy of disciplines, placing the arts and PE at the very bottom of importance (134).
8.2. "Young children have a ready appetite to explore whatever draws their interest" (135).
8.2.1. "When their curiosity is engaged, they will learn from themselves, from each other, and from any source they can lay their hands on" (135).
8.2.2. "They [great teachers] do that [guide students' curiosity] by encouraging students to investigate and inquire for themselves, by posing questions rather than only giving answers, and by challenging them to push their thinking deeper by looking further" (135).
8.3. "Critical thinking involves more than formal logic" (137).
8.3.1. "The Internet alone is the most ubiquitous source of information that humanity has devised, & it is growing exponentially. So too are the risks of confusion and obfuscation" (137).
8.3.2. "the need has never been greater for them to separate fact from opinion, sense from nonsense, and honesty from deception" (137).
9. Chapter 8
9.1. "For a school to excel, a third figure is critical: an inspired school leader who brings vision, skill, and a keen understanding of the kinds of environments where learners can and want to learn" (182).
9.1.1. Boston Arts Academy leadership (182-183)
9.1.2. "High performance is driven by motivation and aspiration, and great leaders know how to conjure up those in the human spirit" (187).
9.1.3. The Premier League and Ferguson's retirement (187-188).
9.2. "Great principals know that their job is not primarily to improve test results; it is to build community among the students, teachers, parents, and staff, who need to share a common set of purposes" (188).
9.2.1. Richard Gerver and Grange from Chapter 2 (189).
9.2.2. Jean Hendrickson of Oklahoma City public schools (195-197).
10. Chapter 10
10.1. "The changes that are needed in school will take root more readily if local and national policies actually support them" (226).
10.1.1. "It became clear through these outreach sessions and meetings with school superintendents that there was a real desire in many parts of the state to focus more on the kinds of practical, collaborative programs we've discussed" (228)
10.1.2. Transform SC
10.1.3. "They [children] need policies and visions that speak to their own interests and circumstances and not to be reduced to data points in some abstract political competition" (232).
10.1.4. House Bill 5 in TX and the shift in TX educational systems