An Education Crisis Is a Terrible Thing to Waste: How Radical Changes Can Spark Student Excitement and Success

Discover how education innovations can produce astonishing results in student success both in and out of school. The educators featured in this book were motivated by the conviction that even the best status quo education was not serving current student needs. They responded with radical changes that tap into recent ideas about educational transformation: personalization, student-driven curriculum, student agency and co-ownership of learning direction, school-sheltered student entrepreneurship, student-led civic projects, creativity education, and product-oriented learning. Readers will find carefully researched and detailed stories of on-the-ground models where students learn empathy, cooperation, creativity, and self-management, alongside rigorous academics. Together these stories provide insight into the process of innovation and the elements that can make change successful. An Education Crisis Is a Terrible Thing to Waste will inspire educators in ordinary situations to take extraordinary actions toward a new paradigm of education in which all students can flourish.

Book Features:

• Real-life stories of students, teachers, school principals, and school networks that have made radical innovations in education.
• Cutting-edge innovations that took place in a broad range of schools--public and private, elementary to high school.
• Specific strategies and tactics educators can use to counter preconceived or real concerns that prevent them from taking action to change.

Yong Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas and a professorial fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Health and Education Policy at Victoria University in Australia. Trina E. Emler is a doctoral candidate and a multidisciplinary research assistant at the University of Kansas and an international education consultant for YEE Education. Anthony Snethen is a doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas and a middle school English teacher. Danqing Yin is a doctoral student and a first-year experience instructor at the University of Kansas.