Prepared: What Kids Need for a Fulfilled Life

"Diane Tavenner, founder of Summit Public Schools, offers a blueprint for a better way to educate our children, based on the revolutionary lessons, insights, and methodology she and her faculty developed over 15 years at their famously successful charterschools in California and Washington, which she is now introducing to public school systems across the country that Summit is partnering with to transform education and better prepare our children to lead fulfilled and successful lives. Diane Tavenner founded the first Summit charter school in 2003, developing and perfecting a personalized, project-based curriculum that puts students in charge of their own learning. The school developed a learning plan for every student. They engaged the students by appealing to them with interdisciplinary, real-world projects, rather than passively learning and memorizing in a classroom environment. They created mentorship groups, where students would talk through their goals and help each other solve problems, as well as meet one-on-one with their mentor, weekly. By internalizing a sense of purpose, self-direction, self-sufficiency, and collaboration, students learn the cognitive and life skills needed to navigate the next phases of their lives. Virtually 100% of Summit's original 400 students went on to attend four year colleges"--
A blueprint for how parents can stop worrying about their children’s future and start helping them prepare for it, from the cofounder and CEO of one of America’s most innovative public-school networks“A treasure trove of deeply practical wisdom that accords with everything I know about how children thrive.”—Angela Duckworth, New York Times bestselling author of Grit In 2003, Diane Tavenner cofounded the first school in what would soon become one of America’s most innovative public-school networks. Summit Public Schools has since won national recognition for its exceptional outcomes: Ninety-nine percent of students are accepted to a four-year college, and they graduate from college at twice the national average. But in a radical departure from the environments created by the college admissions arms race, Summit students aren’t focused on competing with their classmates for rankings or test scores. Instead, students spend their days solving real-world problems and developing the skills of self-direction, collaboration, and reflection, all of which prepare them to succeed in college, thrive in today’s workplace, and lead a secure and fulfilled life.Through personal stories and hard-earned lessons from Summit’s exceptional team of educators and diverse students, Tavenner shares the learning philosophies underlying the Summit model and offers a blueprint for any parent who wants to stop worrying about their children’s future—and start helping them prepare for it. At a time when many students are struggling to regain educational and developmental ground lost to the disruptions of the pandemic, Prepared is more urgent and necessary than ever.