Creating a Vision and Framework

Over the past several decades, how best to improve America's public education system has been heavily debated by educators, researchers, politicians, and the general public. It seems that everyone involved in the debate has their own opinion of what would fix the problems—as a result, the staffs of our nation's schools have been subjected to what seems like a constant stream of new programs to be implemented, none of which has apparently had the desired effect.

Yet there is little debate over the fact that changes are needed. The accountability built into the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation has revealed significant gaps in academic performance between the general school population and subgroups of children such as ...