Download or read book Better Teachers Better Schools written by Valerie Hill-Jackson and published by IAP. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We all know teachers who, in the face of insurmountable district and school level challenges, inspire underserved students to succeed. These teachers are more than good ? they are ‘stars’. Haberman maintains that school districts still gamble when selecting teachers as an overwhelming number are not stars and are unprepared or underprepared to work effectively with marginalized students. Haberman explains that teacher selection is more important than teacher training. The ability to identify educators with the necessary social justice or relational characteristics may lead to an increase in academic achievement among learners as well as lower teacher attrition. Consequently, all those who are interested in building America’s teaching force with stars –including human resource managers for K?12 school districts, administrators, teachers, teacher advocates, teacher education faculty and graduate students ? will benefit from this book. Better Teachers, Better Schools is a must read for two main reasons. First, the achievement gap between 16 million children in poverty and their mainstream counterparts is continuing to become even wider. Many urban students are constantly subjected to educational barriers, which limits their future opportunities. These learners deserve teachers that know more than content, but who can build relationships in order to leverage learning with greater outcomes. Second, Haberman was one of the most prolific producers of teachers to date. He reminds us that quality school systems, built on the back of quality teachers, benefit our society. Better Teachers, Better Schools offers a refreshing take on what it means to be a star teacher by sharing some of Haberman’s most requested writings as well as new narratives and research that corroborate his star theory. The contributions in this volume give us a window into Haberman’s seven relational dispositions of star teachers; or teachers’ ideology put into behavior. Also, each chapter contains learning outcomes and reflection questions for discussion.

Download or read book Schoolhouses Courthouses and Statehouses written by Eric A. Hanushek and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-27 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Improving public schools through performance-based funding Spurred by court rulings requiring states to increase public-school funding, the United States now spends more per student on K-12 education than almost any other country. Yet American students still achieve less than their foreign counterparts, their performance has been flat for decades, millions of them are failing, and poor and minority students remain far behind their more advantaged peers. In this book, Eric Hanushek and Alfred Lindseth trace the history of reform efforts and conclude that the principal focus of both courts and legislatures on ever-increasing funding has done little to improve student achievement. Instead, Hanushek and Lindseth propose a new approach: a performance-based system that directly links funding to success in raising student achievement. This system would empower and motivate educators to make better, more cost-effective decisions about how to run their schools, ultimately leading to improved student performance. Hanushek and Lindseth have been important participants in the school funding debate for three decades. Here, they draw on their experience, as well as the best available research and data, to show why improving schools will require overhauling the way financing, incentives, and accountability work in public education.

Download or read book Learning to Improve written by Anthony S. Bryk and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2015-03-01 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a field, education has largely failed to learn from experience. Time after time, promising education reforms fall short of their goals and are abandoned as other promising ideas take their place. In Learning to Improve, the authors argue for a new approach. Rather than “implementing fast and learning slow,” they believe educators should adopt a more rigorous approach to improvement that allows the field to “learn fast to implement well.” Using ideas borrowed from improvement science, the authors show how a process of disciplined inquiry can be combined with the use of networks to identify, adapt, and successfully scale up promising interventions in education. Organized around six core principles, the book shows how “networked improvement communities” can bring together researchers and practitioners to accelerate learning in key areas of education. Examples include efforts to address the high rates of failure among students in community college remedial math courses and strategies for improving feedback to novice teachers. Learning to Improve offers a new paradigm for research and development in education that promises to be a powerful driver of improvement for the nation’s schools and colleges.

Download or read book Improvement by Design written by David K. Cohen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-12-06 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the great challenges now facing education reformers in the United States is how to devise a consistent and intelligent framework for instruction that will work across the nation’s notoriously fragmented and politically conflicted school systems. Various programs have tried to do that, but only a few have succeeded. Improvement by Design looks at three different programs, seeking to understand why two of them—America’s Choice and Success for All—worked, and why the third—Accelerated Schools Project—did not. The authors identify four critical puzzles that the successful programs were able to solve: design, implementation, improvement, and sustainability. Pinpointing the specific solutions that clearly improved instruction, they identify the key elements that all successful reform programs share. Offering urgently needed guidance for state and local school systems as they attempt to respond to future reform proposals, Improvement by Design gets America one step closer to truly successful education systems.

Download or read book A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door written by Jack Schneider and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2023-03-07 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A trenchant analysis of how public education is being destroyed in overt and deceptive ways—and how to fight back In the “vigorous, well-informed” (Kirkus Reviews) A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, the co-hosts of the popular education podcast Have You Heard expose the potent network of conservative elected officials, advocacy groups, funders, and think tanks that are pushing a radical vision to do away with public education. “Cut[ing] through the rhetorical fog surrounding a host of free-market reforms and innovations” (Mike Rose), Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire lay bare the dogma of privatization and reveal how it fits into the current context of right-wing political movements. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door “goes above and beyond the typical explanations” (SchoolPolicy.org), giving readers an up-close look at the policies—school vouchers, the war on teachers’ unions, tax credit scholarships, virtual schools, and more—driving the movement’s agenda. Called “well-researched, carefully argued, and alarming” by Library Journal, this smart, essential book has already incited a public reckoning on behalf of the millions of families served by the American educational system—and many more who stand to suffer from its unmaking. “Just as with good sci-fi,” according to Jacobin, “the authors make a compelling case that, based on our current trajectory, a nightmare future is closer than we think.”

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 Public School Advantage written by Christopher A. Lubienski and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-11-07 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly the whole of America’s partisan politics centers on a single question: Can markets solve our social problems? And for years this question has played out ferociously in the debates about how we should educate our children. From the growth of vouchers and charter schools to the implementation of No Child Left Behind, policy makers have increasingly turned to market-based models to help improve our schools, believing that private institutions—because they are competitively driven—are better than public ones. With The Public School Advantage, Christopher A. and Sarah Theule Lubienski offer powerful evidence to undercut this belief, showing that public schools in fact outperform private ones. For decades research showing that students at private schools perform better than students at public ones has been used to promote the benefits of the private sector in education, including vouchers and charter schools—but much of these data are now nearly half a century old. Drawing on two recent, large-scale, and nationally representative databases, the Lubienskis show that any benefit seen in private school performance now is more than explained by demographics. Private schools have higher scores not because they are better institutions but because their students largely come from more privileged backgrounds that offer greater educational support. After correcting for demographics, the Lubienskis go on to show that gains in student achievement at public schools are at least as great and often greater than those at private ones. Even more surprising, they show that the very mechanism that market-based reformers champion—autonomy—may be the crucial factor that prevents private schools from performing better. Alternatively, those practices that these reformers castigate, such as teacher certification and professional reforms of curriculum and instruction, turn out to have a significant effect on school improvement. Despite our politics, we all agree on the fundamental fact: education deserves our utmost care. The Public School Advantage offers exactly that. By examining schools within the diversity of populations in which they actually operate, it provides not ideologies but facts. And the facts say it clearly: education is better off when provided for the public by the public.

Download or read book Despite the Best Intentions written by Amanda E. Lewis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the surface, Riverview High School looks like the post-racial ideal. Serving an enviably affluent, diverse, and liberal district, the school is well-funded, its teachers are well-trained, and many of its students are high achieving. Yet Riverview has not escaped the same unrelenting question that plagues schools throughout America: why is it that even when all of the circumstances seem right, black and Latino students continue to lag behind their peers? Through five years' worth of interviews and data-gathering at Riverview, John Diamond and Amanda Lewis have created a rich and disturbing portrait of the achievement gap that persists more than fifty years after the formal dismantling of segregation. As students progress from elementary school to middle school to high school, their level of academic achievement increasingly tracks along racial lines, with white and Asian students maintaining higher GPAs and standardized testing scores, taking more advanced classes, and attaining better college admission results than their black and Latino counterparts. Most research to date has focused on the role of poverty, family stability, and other external influences in explaining poor performance at school, especially in urban contexts. Diamond and Lewis instead situate their research in a suburban school, and look at what factors within the school itself could be causing the disparity. Most crucially, they challenge many common explanations of the 'racial achievement gap,' exploring what race actually means in this situation, and why it matters. An in-depth study with far-reaching consequences, Despite the Best Intentions revolutionizes our understanding of both the knotty problem of academic disparities and the larger question of the color line in American society.

Download or read book Schools That Heal written by Claire Latane and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2021-06-03 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would a school look like if it was designed with mental health in mind? Too many public schools look and feel like prisons, designed out of fear of vandalism and truancy. But we know that nurturing environments are better for learning. Access to nature, big classroom windows, and open campuses consistently reduce stress, anxiety, disorderly conduct, and crime, and improve academic performance. Backed by decades of research, Schools That Heal showcases clear and compelling ways--from furniture to classroom improvements to whole campus renovations--to make supportive learning environments for our children and teenagers. With invaluable advice for school administrators, public health experts, teachers, and parents Schools That Heal is a call to action and a practical resource to create nurturing and inspiring schools for all children.

Download or read book Building Better Schools with Evidence based Policy written by Kelly-Ann Allen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building Better Schools with Evidence-based Policy: Adaptable Policy for Teachers and School Leaders provides an extensive set of free-to-use policies for building better schools. The policies included in this book cover a broad range of popular topics for schools that are not readily accessible, and each policy is built on theory, driven by research, and created by experts. Each policy is based on substantial evidence, and this is ensured through the inclusion of contributors who are active and highly reputable in their respective field. Most schools are obliged to write and maintain policy, and not all school leaders have the required skills, time, or expertise to do this effectively. Building Better Schools with Evidence-based Policy: Adaptable Policy for Teachers and School Leaders is a time-saving resource for schools. It aims to address the reported research-to-practice gap in education by delivering accessible evidence-based practice in a ready-to-use adaptable format. All policies within this book are designed to be adapted and tailored to the unique diversity and needs of each school as reflected by the context and the people that make up the school community. This book is relevant to every person who works in a school – worldwide. Users of this book can rest assured that each policy has been carefully formulated from the current understandings of best practice. This is a practical innovation and an example of how schools can use research evidence in their day-to-day practices. "The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license."

Download or read book Schools on the Move written by Jay Westover and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2022-02-10 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The greatest influence on school district improvement is the extent to which school leaders and teachers collectively transform climate, develop culture and build capacity for the purpose of creating coherence. Districts on the Move (DOTM) paved the way for system change by establishing coherent cultures of learning. Now that DOTM has been written and district leaders can establish the context for positive system change, this new book, Schools on the Move (SOTM), will delve into bringing that vision to life and realizing school improvement at the building level. At the heart of this matter is a foundational principle that schools are the unit of change for systemic improvement. It is imperative to reduce the variances in climate, culture, capacity and coherence that exist among and within school sites if school districts are to create a coherent system of continuous improvement. This book will provide practical tools and guidance to help schools create coherent systems (and thereby improve the whole district) in these four domains: 1. Shared Leadership: partnering with teachers and staff to develop a culture of co-learning 2. Clarity of Focus: creating a strategic focus on equitable student growth 3. Collective Expertise: developing instructional coherence through cycles of collaborative inquiry 4. Continuous Improvement: maintaining a focus on evidence and impact Collaborative inquiry is the vehicle through which this change is realized. Collaborative inquiry "shapes a common mindset" (Donohoo) and allows educators to develop collective efficacy through mastery of shared learning experiences"--

Download or read book Creating Connections for Better Schools written by Douglas Fiore and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-24 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book demonstrates that student achievement depends on school culture, the one element of your school at the foundation of everything that happens there. School culture is the system of beliefs, values, and expectations that governs the feelings and actions of everybody there. This book shows how principals can build relationships and connections to enhance school culture. Practical and accessible, this book provides guidelines which will show you how to: - communicate with teachers, students, and parents on a regular basis - be "visible" - recognize, utilize and empower your faculty

Download or read book Building Trust for Better Schools written by Julie Reed Kochanek and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2005-04-13 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kochanek links the growth of trust with positive outcomes that benefit schools, such as increased participation, greater openness to innovations, boosts in parent outreach, and higher academic productivity.

Download or read book Community Engagement for Better Schools written by Michael Guo-Brennan and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-09-18 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States, government participation in education has traditionally involved guaranteeing public access, public funding, and public governance to achieve accountability, representativeness and equality. This volume discusses the role of broad regimes of local community actors to promote school improvement through greater civic engagement. Taking a historical perspective, this text examines the relationship between government at the federal, state, and local level and local actors both inside the traditional education regime and those stakeholders outside the schools including parents, non-profit organizations, and businesses. It then drills deeper into the role of state legislatures and finally local leadership both inside and outside the schools to promote change, focusing on efforts that include parental choice through tax incentives, charter schools, magnet schools, and school vouchers to achieve accountability, representativeness and equality. The text examines the perceptions and relationships of various actors in urban education reform in numerous cities across the country with special attention dedicated to Chicago, Illinois, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin to offer a deeper understanding of the barriers to and opportunities for fostering greater civic capacity and engagement in urban education reform, as well as developing inclusive educational policy. Attention is also given to accountability and measuring success, traditionally defined by high stakes testing which fails to consider non-classroom factors within the community that contribute to student performance. An alternative approach is offered driven by a wholistic accounting of various factors that contribute to school success centered around third-party inspections and accreditation. Providing insight into school reform at the local level, this book will be useful to researchers and students interested in public policy, education policy, urban governance, intergovernmental relations, and educational leadership, as well as teaching professionals, administrators, and local government officials.

Download or read book Citizens Committees for Better Schools written by United States. Office of Education and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Mobilizing Citizens for Better Schools written by Robert F. Sexton and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2004-03-20 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tired of the complacent attitudes Kentucky politicians showed toward education, the Prichard Committee formed as an organization to galvanize the citizens of Kentucky to attack the state's historic educational deficits. The committee's campaigning helped prepare the way for the passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act in 1990 and continues to work for school reform today. Based on his wealth of experience and success with the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, Sexton provides invaluable guidance for citizens of all states who are interested in implementing school reform.

Download or read book Teacher Research for Better Schools written by Marian M. Mohr and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about a group of experienced K-12 teachers who took teacher research to another level. Their story is not only about teacher working together to improve their own teaching, but also about how their research reverberated throughout their school system and inflluenced how their schools were run.