Redefining Student Success

Building a New Vision to Transform Leading, Teaching, and Learning

Ken Kay and Suzie Boss have created a practical path that has the potential to transform American education. It includes an inspiring vision, vital components of change, and a realistic path forward. It is the long, overdue bridge from ideas to implementation. Redefining Student Success supports teachers and leaders in their journeys to create modern, personalized education for all students.

When two authorities on 21st century skills and project-based learning join forces, the whole can be greater than the parts—and that is the case with this book. Ken Kay and Suzie Boss bring their exceptional expertise together to offer a synthesized vision that can truly transform schooling. If you’re ready to embark on the journey toward ‘future proof’ learning, this book is for you!

The vision of education needs to change and to make that happen, it must engage the community in a robust conversation about what our students really need for college, life, and career. Ken Kay and Suzie Boss’s book takes the premise that our new vision of education needs to be rooted in our communities and shows us what is possible as we build that vision and allow it to take root deeply in every phase of education. It turns out when the community is engaged in developing the vision, they become co-owners and help light the path for students to obtain the skills, mindsets, and dispositions they need to be successful.

Redefining Student Success is an inspirational reminder that education is only limited by our vision, and teaching is first and foremost an act of leadership.

Ken Kay and Suzie Boss have both made so many helpful contributions to innovative learning and teaching. I love that they have teamed up. The strengths of this book are the specific strategies that help educators translate their visions for learning into concrete, actionable structures. The ‘field trip’ examples from schools across the country and the Portrait of a Graduate connections are fantastic!”

For 20 years, Ken Kay has been the leading advocate for 21st century skills. Two decades into the century, Kay and Suzie Boss offer a timely update on what young people need to know and be able to do to thrive with a focus on creative problem solving and the addition of self-direction and civic engagement. This bold vision is a must read for any school or system reconsidering learning goals. We appreciate how the authors have incorporated sustainability, innovation, and entrepreneurship into a call for community-connected project-based learning.

Ken Kay and Suzie Boss are veteran edu-leaders in our march to transform K–12 learning. In Redefining Student Success, they give school leaders a powerful, detailed, and ready-to-use set of tools to move beyond the ‘why’ and on to the ‘how’ of school change. The book provides a cornucopia of examples from schools, leaders, and teams that are already well on the way.