Crimes Against Learning

Most of us would agree that it makes sense to organize our school systems around what we want students to know and be able to do after they leave school. System change requires that we restructure the fundamental character and operating relationships of everything we do at every level of the system. System change is what 'Solving the serial failure of school reform' is all about.

It is past time for us to organize around results for all students. We have had answers for decades and have ignored them. Schools continue to prepare our students for a past that no longer exists. We have ignored the research, and we have ignored the future our students will face when they leave school. We must shed the archaic, Industrial Age assumptions and structures that are preventing sustainable reforms. We have titled this book Crimes Against Learning because students are held captive in school for thirteen years. They have little choice in setting the expectations adults have of them. They have little choice in the education opportunities they receive. Students are victims of a system that may not prepare them for a life of economic self-sufficiency. And, they have no means of escape. Given the results, far too many students are being channeled into a life of poverty and disappointment. In the end, the vast majority of students are either victims or survivors of the schools they attend. Is it not a crime of negligence or even a crime of intent if we know what we can do to ensure that all students succeed, but we don’t act?

Kit Marshall, PhD, has been in the business of system and school reform for forty years. She taught in a large urban district and served as a district and county office administrator in Sacramento, CA, before starting her own consulting company. Kit worked in every state and in Canada carrying the message of system reform, peer support systems, and classroom practices known to increase student achievement. Kit developed many of the materials used by Action Learning Systems for instructional strategies and coaching. She founded Action Learning Systems in 1994 and continues as the Chief Executive Officer. Kit obtained her PhD in Educational Sociology from Stanford University.