We love this book. It calls for an approach to education that is quite different from what is now the norm while simultaneously recognizing and celebrating much of what is great and inspiring about American education. That call for change is grounded in an understanding of leading edge developments in how the brain/mind learns naturally, as illustrated by the power of play. It explores the corresponding need for a more complex yet authentic approach to teaching that matches how people learn. It grasps and illustrates the power of context. And it has a deep appreciation of the immense importance of physical and emotional safety, and the crucial importance of great leadership. The book is well researched, beautifully written, elegantly colored with metaphors that bring the message to light, and is both practical and inspirational. It deserves to be very widely read.

Geoffrey and Renate Caine, co-authors , “Making Connections, Education on the Edge of Possibility”, “Mindshifts”, “The 12 Brain/Mind Principals in Action and Natural Learning for a Connected World”.

Harnessing the Dynamics of Public Education: Preparing for a Return to Greatness is insightful, forward thinking and riveting. An absolute must read to anyone involved in education!

Jeremy K. Glenn, EdD, superintendent, Waxahachie Independent School District

Schools evolve to meet the demands placed upon them by laws, legislatures, and culture. The result has been the unimaginative standardized educational processes that punish innovation and creativity. Drs. Timothy B. Jones and David C. Barrett’s new book, Harnessing the Dynamics of Public Education: Preparing for a Return to Greatness, provides an important, and often critical, view of education. We must face what we have become before we can get better, but fortunately, there is a path to the schools we want.

Wesley D. Hickey, EdD, chair department of educational leadership and policy studies, The University of Texas at Tyler

In their book, Harnessing the Dynamics of Public Education: Preparing for a Return to Greatness, Timothy Jones and David Barrett draw attention, critically and importantly, to the deleterious nature of standardization in American education. The authors are instructive in their argument that America as a democratic society is witnessing the slow erosion of intellectual excellence that has been the hallmark of American’s educational system, and a mainstay of America’s democratic way of life. The authors focus on the need to transform, rightly so, old patterns that have contributed to the destruction of public education. Argued in this book is the need to create America’s schools anew, taking a new path to greatness for public education, shattering outdated and constrictive notions of traditions in favor of a new paradigm that permeates and gives way to thinking and necessary actions.

Patrick M. Jenlink

In Harnessing the Dynamics of Public Education: Preparing for a Return to Greatness, the reader is immediately drawn into this book’s story and premise. The authors skillfully establish not only the need for change in American education, they do so with bold words. Their use of seven drivers to return public education to greatness is clever and intellectually provocative. The reader cannot help but become motivated to join Drs. Jones and Barrett’s call to return American public schools to their greatness.

Lloyd Goldsmith, EdD, professor emeritus and former principal, Abilene Christian University

Inspiring and spot on! Drs. Jones and Barrett’s new book provides hope and strategy for one of America’s most important institutions returning to the prominence it deserves.

Russell D. Marshall, superintendent, Mabank Independent School District