Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems pretty clear to me: Yom says he keeps getting asked if there's some secret recipe for getting students to perform at their highest potential. "This may sound corny, but you really have to love them," Yom says. "You build this trust, and at that point, whatever you ask them to do, they'll go the extra mile. The recipe is love." Basically it comes down to soft skills. If people think you care about them they will…
Which would explain why new 'systems' like common whatever, pushed from the top down, aren't the best way to improve schools. Which is like forcing programmers into a forced Agile system....it's better to focus on improving the skills of the programmers. The guy in Stand and Deliver was similar.
Common Core, in theory, isn't a problem - unifying standards across schools has a lot of benefits (easier to design reusable curriculums, perform scientific inquiries, develop software). The problem is when it gets conflated with high-stakes testing, which is a terrible thing.