This book explores the five "levers" of schooling: structure, sample, standards, strategy, and self. It illustrates how changes to structure and sample (how schools are organized and how students are grouped) will not be effective without changes to standards (expectations for student learning), strategy (instructional strategies to engage students in meaningful learning), and self (the set of beliefs teachers and students have about their capacity to be effective).

Lever 1 : structure -- Lever 2 : sample -- Lever 3 : standards -- Lever 4 : strategy -- Lever 5 : self -- Pulling the right levers : lessons from campfires, penguins, a bicycle, and the kitchen.