The data are clear: Unless the nation can find a better way to accelerate improvement in the quality of education and implement it in the next 10 years, this nation will lose its competitive edge against other nations and another generation of children will be lost. Eighty percent of Illinois high school graduates are not capable of doing the college-level work essential to getting a well-paying job. But, thanks to 40 years of research on schools and companies, individuals know how to change that. The challenge is to put into practice a new model using what research has revealed about what makes a high-performance school. Putting research into practice: What a straight-forward concept. Yet for decades, education leaders have ignored the rigorous, systemic research. Instead, they put one silver-bullet solution after another into place, based on inadequate or missing research, hoping for the best. Transforming schools by applying research rather than guesswork is not a pipe dream. This article describes how this approach is working in eight Chicago elementary schools in Garfield Park and Little Village.