To succeed with all students in middle and high school, though, we have to go back to the drawing board to "reinvent" secondary education. We must challenge many academics' notions of what constitutes a "rigorous" curriculum, and create a course of study that is as relevant as it is rigorous. We need to bring the kinds of skills mentioned in the U.S. Department of Labor's SCANS report of the 1990s into the core content of our academic courses. We may even want to consider teaching courses around "modes of problem-solving," rather than by the traditional academic Carnegie-unit compartmentalization.

And above all, we must create small school communities, or what I call New Village Schools, where caring adults are much more knowledgeable about and involved with all students' learning.

Too many educators and parents remain cautious or skeptical about ‘reinvention’—preferring simpler but ineffectual fixes.A growing number of educators, as well as local and national philanthropies like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, are working hard to "reinvent" secondary education. But that effort is a race against both time and tradition. We are losing large numbers of kids, and too many educators and parents remain cautious or skeptical—preferring simpler but ineffectual fixes like professional development.

Perhaps if we could all agree on rigor, relevance, and relationships as three core principles of "redesign," the necessary conversations—the adult learning—and the important work of reinvention might move forward more quickly and with a sharper focus.