Since the 1960s, efforts to reform education including various curricular changes, reading approaches, teacher preparation, money for the disadvantaged, and different instructional approaches have failed to bring about true systemic change because the reforms fail to deal with a different definition of learning. The Hope Study was created to discover whether a radically different learning environment would achieve different outcomes. In detailing the outcome of the Hope Study, Assessing What Really Matters in Schools gives hope to innovative and progressive schools, to new and different accountability systems, while changing the conversation from an achievement discourse to a human development discourse."

Since the 1960s, efforts to reform education including various curricular changes, reading approaches, teacher preparation, money for the disadvantaged, and different instructional approaches have failed to bring about true systemic change because the reforms fail to deal with a different definition of learning. The Hope Study was created to discover whether a radically different learning environment would achieve different outcomes. In detailing the outcome of the Hope Study, Assessing What Really Matters in Schools gives hope to innovative and progressive schools, to new and different accountability systems, while changing the conversation from an achievement discourse to a human development discourse.