Nicholas Collis's work is predicated on the idea that schools, which have long stood apart from the community, should become a part of the community. This mandate can be broken down into four basic components:

1. Teachers should be experts on educational process rather than content; i.e., their job is to teach students how to learn so that the students can go out into a world of rapid change and keep pace.

2. Because performance on written tests is no indication of a student's ability to perform in real-life situations, evaluation of students' learning should be based on functional competencies as well as on written tests. (For many people, written tests have no value at all.)

3. The traditional school should be replaced by a learning center where students work with teachers and members of the community on the learning process and obtain needed guidance, but are not limited to the resources available in that building. They should have access to all the information resources in the community (and, with access to the Internet, that "community" can be defined as the whole world). The learning center itself does not have to be a dedicated building at all. It can be a library, conference center, or other multi-purpose structure whose physical plant is not the concern of the school principal. The principal can then concentrate on his/her primary responsibility: that learning takes place for every student.

4. To support this system, a Talent Pool Reserve should be established in each local community to provide content specialists. Participants in the Talent Pool would share their skills and competencies with students through a program similar to the ROTC. They would receive training to help them work effectively with students, and then be placed on reserve for times of need.

The External DiplomaProgram
The Talent Pool Reserve