Healthy Schools Create Healthy Communities.

• Position: SCHOOL POLICY

Gone are the days that schools simply are a place to go and receive content that prepares a student for life. "If school officials want to be relevant in a world that has rapidly moved from Gutenberg to Google, they will have to ask themselves what their value proposition will be in a content abundant world," says Bill Latham, CEO of MeTEOR Education, Gainesville, Fla., and coauthor of Humanizing the Education Machine: How to Create Schools that Turn Disengaged Kids into Inspired Leaders, which explores, among other key themes, beating the odds often created by a child's ZIP code.

"Schools are going to have to transform their practices if they are going to continue to receive future permission from parents to educate their children."

A few of the major themes the book explores are:

* Setting cultures and strategies that align with the particular needs of learning communities. More than 15,000,000 children in the U.S. are living below the poverty line. Latham points to the tremendous mind-share these students devote to basic needs, safety, and security. Strategies that focus on their social and emotional literacy as well as resilience help such children persevere and emerge from such conditions with a brighter future.

* Working to re-engage social capital with teachers, parents, and the community at large. The resources needed for transformative learning experiences for students often are...