Quantifiable measures required by many state education laws and the federal No Child Left Behind Act may be driving out the innovative learning and pedagogy that help develop the creative right-brain thinking that Daniel Pink and others are calling for. "Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College," a report issued by the American Association of American Colleges and Universities, outlines a methodology widely used in studio courses in the visual arts, music, theater and creative writing. The Critique Method essentially puts the student at the center of the learning process, expecting the student to be a passionate and committed creator, and requiring the student to produce a coherent and increasingly sophisticated body of work, subject to rigorous analysis and assessment by faculty-mentors, student-peers, and often outside experts. From teacher to learner, from lecturing to mentoring, from empowering the teacher to empowering the learner, from rote learning to critical thinking, the method insists that individual students demonstrate accountability for their own learning--for all students in all classes, not only in studio classes. An important question is whether essential characteristics of the Critique--which does these things so well--can be transferred and adapted to liberal arts as well as professional education in schools and colleges. This article discusses the experimental curriculum at the Boston Arts Academy (BAA), and advocates that experience to date at BAA suggests that learning and pedagogy in the arts can inform learning for a diverse population of students in many of the ways called for by the "Greater Expectations" report.