American public education has been on a merry-go-round of change for the past 40 years. We made something that is complex by its very nature into a strangled enterprise that is becoming even more knotty and complicated. A fog of reform is created obscuring issues and deflecting our focus from the real mission of schools. We need to emphasize ideals and principles in providing an education for our children in a caring and creative way. This book is about the fog of reform and getting back the ideal of a place called school. The sections describe a new metaphor and approach to change and examine the forces and ideals that can bring about the schools children need. Principles and values transform organizations, not mandates and fear. Recipes for making schools into caring places for children do not exist. Great schools must be created one-by-one. Numbers don't create change; people and passion do. Unless we focus on the moral imperative of educating children, we will fail them and possibly slide into an ethical quagmire.
