Our education system is full of structures, systems, and research that don't help kids learn. It incentivizes administrators to take costly actions based on assumptions, and most importantly, misunderstands the reasons their students achieve, or don't. At the heart of it all lies basic psychology - the strong tendency for humans to lean hard toward their interests and search for meaning in the challenging work put before them. Our school systems aren't built to account for that.
Recognizing that subject-based academics delivered in a classroom format is only relevant to a minority of students is the first step, but conducting research inside of each local school system is critical to finding the best answers for each unique community. Based on the answers found in that research, the author proposes multiple modes of learning that culminate in real-world businesses students create and/or help run based on their interests and strengths.
One of the challenges in implementing changes in education is sustainability. If a change is going to stick, all stakeholders must see it as beneficial to students. Even more importantly, the changes need to represent an overall improvement in the work environment of the adults, because if the adults in the system were truly focused on student learning first, well, school would already look quite different. Finally, the changes need to create a new revenue stream for schools, serving to help lessen the influence of state and federal governments and return more local control.