Customer Reviews

Delivering on the Promise: The Education Revolution

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This book has reinspired my teaching practice. As a teacher in a district with no professional development and no coherent vision for our teachers, schools and students, Delivering on the Promise gave me the faith in what I am doing for kids and refocused my energy and efforts. I have recommended this book to teachers who have great ideas about becoming facilitators in their classrooms and refocusing the locus of control back to the students. This book has shown me how to do this, what it looks like across grade levels and examples of how to implement the structure into your classroom. A must have for any educator looking to expand their pedagogy and wanting to make a serious change in our system.

As the principal of a small K-12 school I am always looking for ways to improve myself and the achievement level of all students. After reading Delivering on the Promise, there was no way that I could not "not do" what the book instructs leaders to do. Being responsible for what happens in my building I now am accountable for what I have read. We are embarking on this revoluntionary, empowering method of schooling.

I was fortunate to listen to one of the authors, Richard A. DeLorenzo at a conference in November. His story was so fascinating that I decided to read more about it in this book "Delivering on the promise". The book describes what he and others have done in some districts in Alaska. The book is easy to read and gives a perfect insight into how they implemented this new approach to schooling. The RISC Approach to Schooling is described in detail and this is a book I recommend both for teachers, school leaders and stakeholders. What I like most about the book is that some step-by step guidance is in place explaining how to make it happen, but not every detail is articulated, meaning that there is room for local ownership of the model. I think that is crucial for schools if they are to succeed in changing.

The book describes how one teacher started out wanting to help his own students and ended up changing the entire school system in many districts. As the authors suggest, my contribution will be to start thinking about ways to implement the system in my own school, and also pass this book on to a colleague. (I already have!)

If you are a teacher wondering why you feel like you are banging your head against a wall... why all of the great things you are accomplishing are not making the impact you want or need... read this book! Delivering on the Promise provides the solution- a paradigm shift. Read about the school that you would love to work at and/or have your own children attend.

After nearly forty years as an educator dedicated to reforming broken school systems, and even counting a few successes, I was left with little or no hope. Finally, I'm astonished to see the real deal here. The Re-Inventing Schools Coalition (RISC) offers up a Meta view, a paradigm shift, for change. We can look to their prize wining schools as models, but what's of greater value is their philosophy - it sets traditional schooling on its head and gives us the courage to follow through on what common sense should have been dictating all these years.

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I believe RISC is uniquely capable of digging this country out of a seemingly inevitable post-crash fall. We cannot prosper let alone globally survive in any real sense until our education system, the foundation of our future, pulls its head out of the sand. We must face its failure - not only academic failure, but also social failure. After my own long and hard years in schools, I came to realize traditional education is not a model that can be fixed, only abandoned. RISC now shows us the way to rebuild from the ground up so our nation's schools will guarantee our country's future success. This is not reform - it is truly reinvention.

Locally, one Native American high school near here has loosely adopted RISC and now flourishes. For myself, feeling once again inspired, I'm working with a group of dedicated parents and next September we will be opening a RISC based charter school in our community. We remain grateful to the ground breaking work of these authors. This book is a pivotal starting place for anyone interested in opening a school or reinventing an existing school system.

This book outlines the philosophy behind RISC (Reinventing Schools Coalition) and provides an overview to the ideas of founder Rich Delorenzo and his staff. After reading this book I am totally convinced that this is the way to solve our country's crisis. More people should read this book and spread the word!