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The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach The New Survival Skills Our Children Need--and What We Can Do About It

Order The Global Achievement Gap
on Amazon.com

Advance praise for Change Leadership:

"The Global Achievement Gap is thoughtful and inspirational. It describes how, in these changing times, schools too must change if the US is to remain a strong economic and intellectual leader in the world, and it offers creative solutions and examples of success. This book will capture your head, your heart and, I hope, your future actions. This is a VERY important book for anyone who cares about preparing young people for success in a rapidly changing global society.  Every school board member, administrator, teacher and parent in the nation should read this book."

Anne L.  Bryant
Executive Director, National School Boards Association

"Tony Wagner argues persuasively that old ways of teaching are completely unsuited to new ways of working.  The Global Achievement Gap should be grabbed by business leaders to guide a much-needed conversation with educators."

Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Harvard Business School Professor
Author of America the Principled and Confidence

"Tony Wagner takes us deep inside the black box of school curriculum in a way few authors have done. What do we mean by rigor? By 21st century skills? Wagner shows us concretely what thinking skills really are, how current approaches to ‘raising standards' cannot get us there, and what will. Everyone concerned with American education should read this book."

Linda Darling-Hammond
Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education, Stanford University

"School as we know it all too often does not engage students, teachers or leaders in the learning process and as a result we have a generation of students learning to ‘do school' rather than learning the skills they really need to succeed. Tony Wagner makes a strong case for rethinking our entire approach to education, and his argument is persuasive."

Larry Stupski
Chairman, Stupski Foundation

"Tony Wagner is not just talking about our schools here--he is talking about the future our nation.  The Global Achievement Gap cuts through the complexity and partisan posing so often associated with this genre.  It is a powerful call to action, and a roadmap of how to fundamentally rethink the education of our children.  If we ignore it, we do so at great peril."

Keith R. McFarland
Author of #1 Wall Street Journal and New York Times Bestseller, The Breakthrough Company:  How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers

"Kudos to Tony Wagner for threading the K-12 education maze. Many people have been cursing the darkness, but by parsing the many dilemmas that students, teachers and parents face as well as examining different approaches that have been successful, he has lit a candle for those who want to help, but don't know where to start. Whether we become Rome or transition these exciting and perilous times successfully will depend upon the culture we leave our young. Tony has provided a map."

John Abele
Founding Chairman, Boston Scientific

“The Global Achievement Gap is a lucid - and scary - book.  It chronicles how policies whose intent is to improve our schools are actually shutting down their abilities to help students learn how to think.  Parent, teachers, administrators and policy makers urgently need to understand what Wagner is telling us.”

Clayton Christensen
Professor, Harvard Business School
Author of Disrupting Class

"This insightful book calls for a much needed dialogue between educators, business leaders and policy makers on the future of American education.  By using many real-life examples, the book is a very readable starting point for that discussion."

Charles Fadel
Global Lead for Education, Cisco Systems

"In The Global Achievement Gap, Tony Wagner offers a thoughtful analysis of where we are in American public education (behind the times), and what we need to do to adapt to the future that is upon us. Drawing upon years of accumulated wisdom as a teacher, principal, trainer, and well-traveled observer of schools, Wagner builds a persuasive case for change in the way we approach schooling, grounded in the question, what does it mean to be an educated person in the 21st century?"

Dr. Richard C. Atkinson
President Emeritus, University of California

"The Global Achievement Gap offers a simple, readable, intelligent and compelling analysis of the needs of our schools and the ways to address them."

Dr. Arthur E. Levine
President, The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation

"This important book is a wake-up call for America. Wagner shows that even the best schools are failing to teach the necessary skills for the 21st century. Students memorize academic content, and get high scores on standardized tests, but they never learn how to think, solve problems, or be creative. The stories about the few remarkable schools that are transforming classroom instruction and pointing the way to the future are compelling. Every parent, teacher, politician, and executive should read this book."

Keith Sawyer
Author of Group Genius

"In this persuasive book, Tony Wagner delineates what skills are needed in a globalized era, why most American schools can't nurture them, and how today's schools could be transformed to cultivate tomorrow's skills."

Howard Gardner
Author of Five Minds for the Future

"Tony Wagner has managed to penetrate the jargon and over-simplified responses to the pervasive underachievement that exists among our students. He has charted an important new direction and given us a way to get there. This book deserves to be powerfully influential."

Mel Levine MD
Author of A Mind At a Time and The Myth of Laziness

"It's always an occasion for delight when Tony Wagner writes a new book. He's done it again by provoking us to think about the reasons behind the current furor over school achievement."

Deborah Meier
Author of The Power of Their Ideas