Education must be customer driven (student, parent, and employer) and provide ALL students with an academically rigorous and occupationally relevant education.

Education must provide students with the skills and knowledge necessary to become life-long learners and contributing members of society with the ability to adapt to the rapidly changing high tech high demand global economy of the 21st century.

To accomplish this, we must recognize and embrace three basic principles:

• Education must become a community-wide approach that engages all sectors to participate in the education of all students.
• Education must consist of the three core components: school-based learning, work-based learning, and connecting activities.
• Education must move from an instructional methodology of rote to relevancy, from an approach of abstract to authentic learning, and from a system that is compliance driven to one that is competency based.

If we can do this, we will transition our educational system from the drill-and-kill approach of the 19th century, to the learn-and-earn model necessary for the 21st century.