Download or read book Against School Reform And in Praise of Great Teaching written by Peter S. Temes and published by Ivan R. Dee. This book was released on 2003-07-07 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the midst of the continuing controversy over the right ways to bring change to American schools, Peter Temes’s book is a firebell in the night. In Against School Reform Mr. Temes sets out a straightforward prescription for our schools which centers on the life of the individual teacher and rejects the billion-dollar school reform industry. He argues that enormous monies and millions of hours of effort have gone into reforming American schools in the past ten years, and we have precious little to show for it. As we enter a critical period in American history—a growing population, an uncompromising demand for well-educated workers, and the complexities of world politics impacting ordinary people every day—there is not more time or money to waste. In Mr. Temes’s view, great teachers are the secret to making better schools. Forget the macro issues of school reform, he advises, and focus on recruiting, retaining, and supporting the very best teachers. Teaching will once again become an elite profession, and school problems will go the way of the trolley car. Against School Reform digs deep into the qualities of great teaching, with stories from real schools and with practical advice for parents, teachers, and students who want to celebrate and support great teachers. It also takes a serious look at what our schools must do to recruit and reward the best teachers in the coming era of teacher shortages. Finally, the book celebrates the power of individual teachers to make a difference in their schools and communities, as forces for bottom-up change. More tests won’t fix our schools, Mr. Temes writes. Bigger, better ideas about education won't fix things either. But great teachers can fix our schools, one classroom at a time.
Download or read book In Praise of American Educators written by Richard DuFour and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leadership, Professional Learning Communities, PLC at Work
Download or read book Confessions of a School Reformer written by Larry Cuban and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2022-10-18 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Confessions of a School Reformer, eminent historian of education Larry Cuban reflects on nearly a century of education reforms and his experiences with them as a student, educator, and administrator. Cuban begins his own story in the 1930s, when he entered first grade at a Pittsburgh public school, the youngest son of Russian immigrants who placed great stock in the promises of education. With a keen historian's eye, Cuban expands his personal narrative to analyze the overlapping social, political, and economic movements that have attempted to influence public schooling in the United States since the beginning of the twentieth century. He documents how education both has and has not been altered by the efforts of the Progressive Era of the first half of the twentieth century, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s through the 1970s, and the standards-based school reform movement of the 1980s through today. Cuban points out how these dissimilar movements nevertheless shared a belief that school change could promote student success and also forge a path toward a stronger economy and a more equitable society. He relates the triumphs of these school reform efforts as well as more modest successes and unintended outcomes. Interwoven with Cuban's evaluations and remembrances are his "confessions," in which he accounts for the beliefs he held and later rejected, as well as mistakes and areas of weakness that he has found in his own ideology. Ultimately, Cuban remarks with a tempered optimism on what schools can and cannot do in American democracy.
Download or read book Education Reform written by Facts On File, Incorporated and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the complex issues surrounding education reform in the United States. It contains a survey of the historical developments and major debates surrounding this topic and covers issues such as home schooling, curriculum standards and standardized tests.
Download or read book Common Sense School Reform written by Frederick M. Hess and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forget everything you think you know about school reform. Cutting through the cant, sentiment, and obfuscation characterizing the current school reform debate, Frederick M. Hess lacerates the conventional "status quo" reform efforts and exposes the naivete underlying reform strategies that rest on solutions like class size reduction, small schools, and enhanced professional development. He explains that real improvement requires a bracing regime of common sense reforms that create a culture of competence by rewarding excellence, punishing failure, and giving educators the freedom and flexibility to do their work. He documents the scope of the challenges we face and then provides concrete recommendations for addressing them through reforms to promote accountability, competition, a 21st-century workforce, effective school leadership, and sensible reinvention. Engagingly written and drawing on real world experiences and examples, Common Sense School Reform will generate debate and help set the agenda for the future.
Download or read book Tinkering toward Utopia written by David B. TYACK and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a century, Americans have translated their cultural anxieties and hopes into dramatic demands for educational reform. Although policy talk has sounded a millennial tone, the actual reforms have been gradual and incremental. Tinkering toward Utopia documents the dynamic tension between Americans' faith in education as a panacea and the moderate pace of change in educational practices. In this book, David Tyack and Larry Cuban explore some basic questions about the nature of educational reform. Why have Americans come to believe that schooling has regressed? Have educational reforms occurred in cycles, and if so, why? Why has it been so difficult to change the basic institutional patterns of schooling? What actually happened when reformers tried to reinvent schooling? Tyack and Cuban argue that the ahistorical nature of most current reform proposals magnifies defects and understates the difficulty of changing the system. Policy talk has alternated between lamentation and overconfidence. The authors suggest that reformers today need to focus on ways to help teachers improve instruction from the inside out instead of decreeing change by remote control, and that reformers must also keep in mind the democratic purposes that guide public education.
Download or read book Education Reform written by Ian C. Friedman and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for the previous edition: "...excellent...provide[s] timeless foundational information for those interested in the area of educational reform. Every academic library should have this volume."—American Reference Books Annual The effort to improve the quality, methods, and purpose of elementary and secondary schooling in the United States is known as education reform. This movement traces its origins to the inception of public schools—almost 150 years before the founding of the nation—and has both reflected and led social change in the United States. Americans widely agree that schools play an essential role in shaping the nation's future but disagree about education-related issues ranging from assimilation of immigrants and opportunity for the poor to the role of the federal government and the constitutional rights of parents and children. Today the debates on education reform center on teacher preparation and incentives, standardized testing, charter schools, homeschooling, school choice, class size, and discipline. As the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 reaches its 10-year anniversary, Americans are evaluating its nationwide impact on standards, accountability, curriculum, and failing schools. Education Reform, Revised Edition examines these and other complex issues surrounding this timely issue. Clear and logically organized, this revised volume helps students and researchers define, understand, and research this important topic. Coverage includes: Current developments regarding teacher incentives, curriculum standards, standardized tests, and homeschooling The goals and requirements of "Race to the Top," a $5 billion education grant program rolled out as part of the Obama administration's Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Extracts from documents such as The Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education (1918), A Nation at Risk (1983), the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, and the U.S. Secretary of Education's overview of key policy provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) A concise survey of the events and major debates surrounding education reform in the United States, from earliest influences through the present Up-to-date statistics on charter school enrollment and operations.
Download or read book Left Back written by Diane Ravitch and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-07-31 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this authoritative history of American education reforms in this century, a distinguished scholar makes a compelling case that our schools fail when they consistently ignore their central purpose--teaching knowledge.
Download or read book Time for Action written by Scott D. Wurdinger and published by R&L Education. This book was released on 2012 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book should be read by anyone concerned about the future of education in the U.S. It was written for students, parents, educators, administrators, and policy makers because it will require effort from all these individuals to create meaningful change in the education system. This book discusses why the education system needs to change now, and provides practical examples of teaching approaches, school models, and assessment systems that can move the education system forward in the right direction. Students deserve an education that teaches them how to solve challenging problems and inspires them to become life long learners. Read this book and then go out and implement these ideas.
Download or read book Building Engaged Schools written by Gary Gordon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-09-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Facing greater challenges from increased expectations and global competition, America's public schools can pass the test by thinking and acting differently about selecting teachers and principals, nurturing the talents of students and teachers, and the importance of community involvement. Can America's public schools, long resistant to change, meet the challenges of globalization and new educational alternatives? Not by doing what they're doing today. So argues Building Engaged Schools, a book that challenges the faulty assumptions that guide American public education. In our efforts to create the best possible schools for America's kids, we've allowed process concerns such as standards, curriculum, and testing to overshadow the importance of people. But the fact is, what we've come to think of as the "soft" aspects of education are actually what make truly effective learning possible. Building relationships, nurturing student and teacher talents, fostering engagement...these are what motivate great teachers and inspire students. Indeed, if schools can learn anything from the business world, it's this: The "soft" stuff drives results. Corporate leaders have realized that the best way to improve productivity is to tap the talents and motivation of their human assets. This approach is even more critical in the classroom. An overemphasis on process reforms has set the education system at odds with both teachers and students. Too many students are lethargic or alienated, too many teachers have become disillusioned and cynical. We must find a way to bring public schools back to life, and to tap the enormous potential that exists in America's classrooms. Drawing on decades of Gallup research, Building Engaged Schools offers a fresh approach: Leverage student and teacher talent, on a school-by-school basis. Focusing on talent may lack the political appeal of process reforms, which can be implemented in broad strokes. This approach is surely more complex . But the return on the time and effort invested is far greater. In fact, that return is no less than a more fully engaged society, and a better future for America's children.
Download or read book Curriculum Windows written by Thomas S. Poetter and published by IAP. This book was released on 2017-04-01 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Curriculum Windows: What Curriculum Theorists of the 1990s Can Teach Us about Schools and Society Today is an effort by students of curriculum studies, along with their professor, to interpret and understand curriculum texts and theorists of the 1990s in contemporary terms. The authors explore how key books/authors from the curriculum field of the 1990s illuminate new possibilities forward for us as scholar educators today: How might the theories, practices, and ideas wrapped up in curriculum texts of the 1990s still resonate with us, allow us to see backward in time and forward in time – all at the same time? How might these figurative windows of insight, thought, ideas, fantasy, and fancy make us think differently about curriculum, teaching, learning, students, education, leadership, and schools? Further, how might they help us see more clearly, even perhaps put us on a path to correct the mistakes and missteps of intervening decades and of today? The chapter authors and editor revisit and interpret several of the most important works in the curriculum field of the 1990s. The book's Foreword is by renowned curriculum theorist William H. Schubert.
Download or read book The Death and Life of the Great American School System written by Diane Ravitch and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2010-03-02 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses how school choice, misapplied standards of accountability, the No Child Left Behind mandate, and the use of a corporate model have all led to a decline in public education and presents arguments for a return to strong neighborhood schools and quality teaching.
Download or read book The Shock Doctrine written by Naomi Klein and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 721 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of No Logo shows how the global "free market" has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq In her groundbreaking reporting, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment," losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq. At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. Klein argues that by capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years.
Download or read book Addicted to Reform written by John Merrow and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prize-winning PBS correspondent's provocative antidote to America's misguided approaches to K-12 school reform During an illustrious four-decade career at NPR and PBS, John Merrow—winner of the George Polk Award, the Peabody Award, and the McGraw Prize—reported from every state in the union, as well as from dozens of countries, on everything from the rise of district-wide cheating scandals and the corporate greed driving an ADD epidemic to teacher-training controversies and America's obsession with standardized testing. Along the way, he taught in a high school, at a historically black college, and at a federal penitentiary. Now, the revered education correspondent of PBS NewsHour distills his best thinking on education into a twelve-step approach to fixing a K–12 system that Merrow describes as being "addicted to reform" but unwilling to address the real issue: American public schools are ill-equipped to prepare young people for the challenges of the twenty-first century. This insightful book looks at how to turn digital natives into digital citizens and why it should be harder to become a teacher but easier to be one. Merrow offers smart, essential chapters—including "Measure What Matters," and "Embrace Teachers"—that reflect his countless hours spent covering classrooms as well as corridors of power. His signature candid style of reportage comes to life as he shares lively anecdotes, schoolyard tales, and memories that are at once instructive and endearing. Addicted to Reform is written with the kind of passionate concern that could come only from a lifetime devoted to the people and places that constitute the foundation of our nation. It is a "big book" that forms an astute and urgent blueprint for providing a quality education to every American child.
Download or read book How Teachers Taught written by Larry Cuban and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first edition of this seminal study, Larry Cuban presented the last century of American teaching as one of a stable teacher-centered pedagogy. Within this framework, Cuban explored how major school reform efforts to alter classroom teaching often resulted in modest shifts in pedagogy in elementary schools and even less change in secondary schools.Now, in this second edition, How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1890–1990, Larry Cuban returns to his pioneering inquiry into the history of teaching practice in the United States, responds to criticisms, and incorporates the scholarship of the last ten years. While not abandoning his basic thesis of the remarkable continuity in teacher-based instruction, Cuban now examines more closely the phenomenon of “hybrids” of student-centered and teacher-centered pedagogy, and finds many instances of classroom change sufficient to give pause to those who see futility in classroom reform. The author looks closely at socioeconomic contexts and the evolution of curriculum content. In the final chapter, Cuban directly assesses the implications of his work for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers. Historians, sociologists, and educators will also find powerful relevancy to their work, and the general reader will join in an exciting search for historical realities. “There are no bumper-sticker solutions to educational problems here, no election year gimmicks. Rather, this book presents the seasoned hopefulness and skeptical wisdom of a scholar-practitioner who gives us a better map of where we have been and a sense of where we might go.” —From the Foreword by David Tyack
Download or read book What Should Schools Teach written by Alka Sehgal Cuthbert and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2021-01-07 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The design of school curriculums involves deep thought about the nature of knowledge and its value to learners and society. It is a serious responsibility that raises a number of questions. What is knowledge for? What knowledge is important for children to learn? How do we decide what knowledge matters in each school subject? And how far should the knowledge we teach in school be related to academic disciplinary knowledge? These and many other questions are taken up in What Should Schools Teach? The blurring of distinctions between pedagogy and curriculum, and between experience and knowledge, has served up a confusing message for teachers about the part that each plays in the education of children. Schools teach through subjects, but there is little consensus about what constitutes a subject and what they are for. This book aims to dispel confusion through a robust rationale for what schools should teach that offers key understanding to teachers of the relationship between knowledge (what to teach) and their own pedagogy (how to teach), and how both need to be informed by values of intellectual freedom and autonomy. This second edition includes new chapters on Chemistry, Drama, Music and Religious Education, and an updated chapter on Biology. A revised introduction reflects on emerging discourse around decolonizing the curriculum, and on the relationship between the knowledge that children encounter at school and in their homes.
Download or read book The Cult of Smart written by Fredrik deBoer and published by All Points Books. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named one of Vulture’s Top 10 Best Books of 2020! Leftist firebrand Fredrik deBoer exposes the lie at the heart of our educational system and demands top-to-bottom reform. Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: Academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved. In The Cult of Smart, educator and outspoken leftist Fredrik deBoer exposes this omission as the central flaw of our entire society, which has created and perpetuated an unjust class structure based on intellectual ability. Since cognitive talent varies from person to person, our education system can never create equal opportunity for all. Instead, it teaches our children that hierarchy and competition are natural, and that human value should be based on intelligence. These ideas are counter to everything that the left believes, but until they acknowledge the existence of individual cognitive differences, progressives remain complicit in keeping the status quo in place. This passionate, voice-driven manifesto demands that we embrace a new goal for education: equality of outcomes. We must create a world that has a place for everyone, not just the academically talented. But we’ll never achieve this dream until the Cult of Smart is destroyed.
