While U.S. schools struggled to reach even an average score on a key international exam for 15-year-olds in 2012, BASIS Tucson North, an economically modest, ethnically diverse charter school in Arizona, outperformed every country in the world, and left even Shanghai, China's academic gem in the dust. With the U.S. frantic about its place in the global economy, employers desperate for skilled workers, and taxpayers, and policymakers crying for more rigor from their schools the question is "Why is this not the normal school?" "Why shouldn't it be?" June Kronholz asks how this happened, and describes the BASIS history, curriculum, and culture.