For nearly 20 years the system has waded around in the swamp of school reform, fixing schools that are not broken and leveraging change that is not necessary. It is quite simple. Current educational reforms are based on a misguided, mechanistic view of the world. This view rests on the Descartian (Cartesian) belief that the universe is like a clock where if a few parts are changed, it will tell better time. A mechanistic approach assumes that by fixing pieces, the whole thing can be fixed and that by leveraging elements, it can be moved totally to a different place. The author discusses his views on school reform.