What will make school better?

After reading the article "How to Make Schools Better For Kids" by Alexandra Sifferlin, I have a few questions. What will make school better? (beyond the levels you see on WikiHow) This article gives many options but how do we know which things to change, or if they will actually work. Are they reasonable? It raised many thoughts and questions...
"Ditch Traditional Homework"- I think this is an excellent and reasonable idea. When you give choice, students are more interested, therefore will succeed at a higher rate.
"Make Recess Mandatory"- I always had to go out for recess and think that it is sad that schools are shortening this time. If they shorten recess, they will only go home to sit on the couch or play on their computers. I think recess is very important!!!
"Screen Kids for Mental Illness"- This is a very touchy subject with parents because they do not always want to know if their kids have a mental illness. I really have no opinion on this, but it should be up to the parents and not the school system. Also the school system would need to have programs to accommodate these mental illnesses.
"Design Cafeterias that Encourage Healthy Eating"- This is very important because it is hard to make healthy choices when there are mostly unhealthy choices. Obesity is rising so promoting healthy eating is only helping. But how would you do this cheaply? And what options would they give for variety?
"Promote Diversity"- I can see how you could attract students from different backgrounds, but how do you promote diversity in a community full of 80% white people? 
"Turn Discipline into Dialogue"- This is an interesting way to handle your students and disruption in the classroom. I think that it might almost be more distracting to have students stand up during class than if they were not able to sit still. Would this encourage students to behave better or would they feel like they could get away with more?
"Let Students Customize Their Curriculums"- This would work well for students that learn decently on computers. Many students though, would much rather learn on paper. This can be challenging to use this concept with- would it actually help?
"Start Classes After 8:30am"- I do not agree with this at all. You start cutting time from after school activities and make it harder for the family to be together. Those things all help the student to be well-rounded while if classes started later, they would not have as many opportunities for that.

I really enjoyed this article but it raised more questions than it answered. They were good proposed ideas but no thorough explanations... I would love to learn more about customizing curriculums and turning discipline into dialogue.