All school districts have written statements of the educational values and goals that members of the school community believe are important and worth pursuing. They display these on the front page of all school district public relations packets and on the walls of school and district offices. While all segments of the school community enthusiastically embrace the values and goals stated in the documents, rarely, if ever, do they practice these goals and values in classrooms or administrative offices.

The gap between the educational ideals spoken from auditorium stages and the instructional regimes students experience in classrooms is the result of schools designed to achieve institutional goals—accountability, standardization, and efficiency—rather than educational goals—thoughtfulness, deep knowledge, and critically-informed citizens. This book is aimed at school administrators whose goal is restoring the why of schooling to the organizational structures and instructional routines that currently govern public schooling in this nation.