Ask yourself this question: "What will my state look like five or ten years from now if K-12 education performance doesn't substantially improve?" The consequences of each year sending tens of thousands of unprepared kids into a harshly competitive world are already clear. They include rising social safety net spending (leaving less for infrastructure, higher education and other needs), worsening inequality, increasing social and political conflict. And with rapidly improving technology and intensifying global competition, they will only grow worse if America's K-12 education results don't substantially improve -- and quickly. This leads to a second question: "Why do so many school districts fail to improve, and what can we do about it?" Tom Coyne is a business executive who has seen dramatic improvements in K-12 performance in Alberta and Massachusetts, as well as the successful defense of the failed K-12 status quo in Colorado, where he has been deeply involved in education reform at the school, district, and state level. In K-12 On the Brink, Coyne describes the system that has generated the challenges we face today, and illustrates them with a number of case studies, based on his unique perspective as an experienced business executive who has been involved in K-12 for almost twenty years. He then identifies performance improvements initiatives that have produced impressive results, and explains why they can only work at scale if American business leaders become much more aggressively engaged with K-12 performance improvement.