The StarShine Effect, fast paced, gut wrenching at times, down to earth and deeply moving, this inspirational book lifts the spirit and fills the reader with real hope and faith in the "Purpose Driven Life" and presents positive solutions for restoring (fixing?) our badly broken education system and reigniting the community consciousness and spirit of cooperation that made America great. A must read Trish McCarty is changing how and what we learn and when. As a young executive for AT&T she had to attend frequent executive training classes and wondered why she had not learned these things in kindergarten. As her success continued, she became a powerful banker, leveraging technology she had learned at AT&T to help create one of the first inter-active mortgage loan applications on the Internet. A seminar and book junkie, she kept discovering the most simple of truths that if taught in grade school, would have helped her success much earlier. The horror of 9/11 and her own personal experiences caused her to want to redesign how, what and when we are all taught, beginning at the youngest of ages. She believed as long as one person is left angry and uneducated, the entire world is at risk. Pursuing her dream, she left banking in 2002 to open a model research and demonstration sight, StarShine Academy charter school in what was once one of the most violent neighborhoods in Arizona. She now sows schools and Teachers As Leaders training, like seeds throughout the world. This book is loaded with stories and practical advice about what caused success for children as well as adults. The DNA of how schools teach and what children need to learn has changed dramatically in the past one hundred years, but America's education system has not allowed the natural evolvement of answers and success to occur, so our children, parents and teachers continue to suffer. Trish McCarty was inspired to find an answer that would preserve the unique needs and desires of communities, families, and students while delivering an amazing international education, after 9/11 by a book, "How can good schools, mediocre schools, even bad schools achieve enduring greatness?" Jim Collins, Good to Great