In The Learning Equation: The Education Process and Effective Schools, Teachers, and Students Daniel Wentland offers a commonsense primer for school leadership centered around two obvious but rarely acknowledged facts. First, for learning to happen, both educators and students must want to learn. Second, the more we make schooling about solving social problems rather than learning, the less likely they are to succeed at either. Mission creep has turned education into rocket science, something too difficult for most humans to do successfully.

Robert Maranto, 21st Century Chair in Leadership, University of Arkansas; Fayetteville School Board, 2015-2020; editor, Journal of School Choice

Policy outcomes are what matters, not the intentions of the policies. Policies based on facts, not ideologies, solve problems. In this book, the development of the learning equation highlights how student achievement can be improved. Reality is a difficult phenomenon to ignore; the learning equation provides a pathway for student success. The choice is to get on the path for success or continue down the current road of failure. Our children deserve no less.

Christopher T. Cross, chairman emeritus of FourPoint Education Partners