Download or read book Saving Our Schools written by Kenneth S. Goodman and published by RDR Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Saving Our Schools exposes the ugly side of President George Bush's "No Child Left Behind" mandate, which has threatened to close more than 6,000 public schools, to the detriment of dedicated teachers and disadvantaged children alike. Revealing how NCLB forces schools with strictly limited resources to teach its children test-taking skills in a desperate bid to pass high-stakes standardized testing, and how the government blacklists successful professors, institutions, and methods that balk the NCLB party line, and much more, Saving Our Schools warns of an immediate threat to the integrity of public education and urges the reader to take action. An eye-opening social commentary, of keen importance in determining the nation's future. -Midwest Book Review

Download or read book Teaching Minds written by Roger C. Schank and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2015-04-17 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From grade school to graduate school, from the poorest public institutions to the most affluent private ones, our educational system is failing students. In his provocative new book, cognitive scientist and bestselling author Roger Schank argues that class size, lack of parental involvement, and other commonly-cited factors have nothing to do with why students are not learning. The culprit is a system of subject-based instruction and the solution is cognitive-based learning. This groundbreaking book defines what it would mean to teach thinking. The time is now for schools to start teaching minds!

Download or read book Saving Our Students Saving Our Schools written by Robert D. Barr and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2007-10-08 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for the First Edition: "Barr and Parrett have provided educators, policy makers, and parents with an outstanding resource. If you′re serious about leaving no child behind, this is the one book you need to read." —Bill Scott, Executive Director Kentucky School Boards Association Praise for the Second Edition: "We now have the tools to ensure that all our students are successful—what a glorious time for schools, thanks to Robert Barr and William Parrett!" —Nancy Golden, Superintendent Springfield Public Schools, OR Improve achievement for all students with winning strategies that respond to NCLB requirements! Demonstrating that both struggling students and low-performing schools can show dramatic improvement, the authors provide lessons learned from experienced teachers to help educators effectively instruct students who are disadvantaged, culturally diverse, or who may be at risk. Featuring the voices of students, teachers, and administrators, this field-tested guide reviews NCLB mandates and encourages educators to: Establish priorities that focus on student learning Create a school and classroom climate of respect Maintain high expectations for academic performance Rely on results-driven instructional and assessment practices Collaborate with parents and families Saving Our Students, Saving Our Schools, Second Edition, is a valuable resource for educators who want to ensure positive school change and support academic success for their students.

Download or read book Saving Schools written by Paul E. Peterson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-30 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Peterson interprets the history of American schools by placing major educational reformers in the context of their times and relates their thinking to our own era by scrutinizing the often unanticipated consequences of their commitments and ideas. These extraordinary individuals provided the critical ideas and articulated the ideals that motivated many others to search for ways to save the schools from the limitations in which they were embedded: Horace Mann, John Dewey, Martin Luther King, Al Shanker, William Bennett, and James S. Coleman. The drive to centralize was pervasive despite repeatedly expressed reform desire to customize education. Peterson argues that education has become an increasingly labor intensive industry that must reverse direction and become more capital intensive or it will descend in quality. Fortunately, technological change is making it possible radically alter the way in which education services are delivered, providing a new chance to save our schools.

Download or read book Know Better Do Better written by Meredith Liben and published by . This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meredith and David Liben have spent decades transforming education, working as teachers, researchers, leaders, and founders of an alternative public elementary school in Harlem"€"the Family Academy. The Libens have been on the front lines of the reading wars since 1994, when the Family Academy's first cohort of students failed the NYC end of year reading exam and they were confronted with the question: How can a school with plenty of resources, dedication to outstanding instruction, and support for social and emotional learning fail so spectacularly at teaching children how to read? The answers are collected here in Know Better, Do Better: Teaching the Foundations So Every Child Can Read. The Libens have poured through the research, pedagogical movements, and deeply entrenched classroom myths to find the literacy practices and instructional materials that actually improve student learning outcomes. Through their work, the Family Academy reading scores rose to the highest of any non"€"gifted school in Harlem. The best of intentions aren't enough to make children literate; educators have to know better so they can do better.

Download or read book Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools and Winning written by Donald R. McAdams and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Don McAdams, one of a small group of activists elected to the Houston Independent School District Board of Education in 1989, provides a fast moving first-person account of successful reform in the nation’s seventh largest school district. With tact and wisdom, the author shows that school reform is seldom about reading, writing, and arithmetic. Rather, it is mostly about power, status, and money. This is a great story filled with conflict and surprising turns of fate. No one interested in politics, governance, and management of urban school districts can afford to miss Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools . . . and Winning!

Download or read book Waiting for SUPERMAN written by Participant Media and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sundance award-winning documentary "Waiting for Superman" chronicles the efforts to improve America's education system. In this Participant Media Guide, leading educational reformers explore how to fix our broken public school system.

Download or read book Reinventing America s Schools written by David Osborne and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From David Osborne, the author of Reinventing Government--a biting analysis of the failure of America's public schools and a comprehensive plan for revitalizing American education. In Reinventing America's Schools, David Osborne, one of the world's foremost experts on public sector reform, offers a comprehensive analysis of the charter school movements and presents a theory that will do for American schools what his New York Times bestseller Reinventing Government did for public governance in 1992. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the city got an unexpected opportunity to recreate their school system from scratch. The state's Recovery School District (RSD), created to turn around failing schools, gradually transformed all of its New Orleans schools into charter schools, and the results are shaking the very foundations of American education. Test scores, school performance scores, graduation and dropout rates, ACT scores, college-going rates, and independent studies all tell the same story: the city's RSD schools have tripled their effectiveness in eight years. Now other cities are following suit, with state governments reinventing failing schools in Newark, Camden, Memphis, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oakland. In this book, Osborne uses compelling stories from cities like New Orleans and lays out the history and possible future of public education. Ultimately, he uses his extensive research to argue that in today's world, we should treat every public school like a charter school and grant them autonomy, accountability, diversity of school designs, and parental choice.

Download or read book Only Connect written by Rudy Crew and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2007-08-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inspiring new vision for America's public schools from one of the nation's top educators American fourth graders score twelfth in the world in math skills, after Latvia and Hungary. Our eighth graders are fifteenth, below Malaysia and Slovakia. And by the time they're fifteen years old, our students have slipped off the map—to twenty-fourth place internationally. If these stats don't make you angry or ashamed or plain sad, then at the very least they should make you afraid. If matters don't change soon, tens of millions of our sons and daughters will grow up unable to function—let alone compete—in a global economy. And the impact of that on all of us will be devastating. All is not lost, though, says Rudy Crew, who has headed some of the largest and most daunting school systems in America. Not by any means. Only Connect is a call for not just parents but the entire nation to reconceive our relationship with public education. If we're to survive, we must place our schools at the center of our communities and partner with them to produce children with the full set of the tools they'll need—personal, civic, and occupational as well as academic—to face the economic challenges that lie ahead. Much like Thomas Friedman in The World Is Flat, Crew shows us the reality of our schools in a new century, and what we each must do to create the next generation of mature and conscious contributors to society. From parents who demand only the best from their children and their schools, through our teachers and administrators, all the way to Washington, D.C., everyone has a role in restoring American education and America's competitive edge.

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 Can the Market Save Our Schools written by Fraser Institute (Vancouver, B.C.) and published by The Fraser Institute. This book was released on 2001 with total page 10 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Rebuilding Our Schools from the Bottom Up written by Fiona Carnie and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of this book is to explore how teachers, students and parents can be given more of a say in the education system – in how schools are organised, and in what and how children learn. The book does not promote a specific view of education, but considers the means by which educational purposes and approaches can be conceived, agreed and enacted democratically – a precursor to a flourishing democratic society. Rebuilding Our Schools from the Bottom Up has been written in response to significant changes which have taken place in the education system over the past 30 years. In England at least, these changes have resulted in an increasingly centralised system in which the voices of those who teach, those who learn, and those whose children go to school have been marginalised. The book covers four main areas: Teacher voice: listening to the professionals Student voice: involving students as active participants in their education Parent voice: building a genuine home–school partnership School community voice: developing a shared vision With inspiring examples from around the UK and overseas and a range of resources that can be used by senior leaders, teachers and parents, the book aims to encourage and support transformative change so that schools can meet the needs of the communities they exist to serve.

Download or read book Public Schools Public Menace written by Joel Turtel and published by Shawn K. Hall. This book was released on 2005-03 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book explains why public schools are a menace to our children and waste their precious time. The book also shows why public schools are beyond repair, and simply cannot give children the education they need and deserve The author reveals how public schools cripple children's ability to read and indoctrinate innocent children with anti-parent, anti-American, and anti-Judeo-Christian values. The books also explores why public-school authorities now pressure millions of parents to give their children mind-altering drugs like Ritalin. The good news is that parents don't have to put up with a third-rate, mind-numbing public-school education for their kids any longer. The author gives parents a wealth of practical advice, strategies, and resources about quality, low-cost education alternatives parents can use to give their kids a great education, if they decide to take their kids out of public school. He gives detailed lists of quality, low-cost Internet schools, teaching books, and home-schooling resources parents can use to give their kids a great education. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, syndicated radio talk-show host said about "Public Schools, Public Menace" that , "This book is a must read for every parent . . ."

Download or read book Will Standards Save Public Education written by Deborah Meier and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2000-04-24 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Somewhere. . . there is a place of sanity where education is intense and substantive. . . . It's in that place that Deborah Meier has been working all these years. Her voice conveys a life of struggle in the front lines-victories and losses, hopes and disappointments. . . . It's a voice our nation needs to hear. --Jonathan Kozol, from the Foreword Acclaimed educator Deborah Meier offers a fresh take on standardized tests. While others have criticized standards and what they measure, Meier rejects the very idea of a centralized authority that dictates how and what teachers teach. Standardization, she argues, prevents citizens-including teachers-from emerging as thoughtful, responsible adults, seriously engaged with shaping their own schools, classrooms, and communities. As a result, young people can't learn from them how to be thoughtful, responsible adults and good citizens, the primary goal of public education in a democracy. The New Democracy Forum is a series of short paperback originals exploring creative solutions to our most urgent national concerns. "A civic treasure. . . . A truly good idea, carried out with intelligence and panache." --Robert Pinsky

Download or read book Standards for Our Schools written by Marc S. Tucker and published by Jossey-Bass. This book was released on 1998-01-23 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely, tough-minded book shows how American public schools can be saved by instituting high standards for academic achievement. Standards for Our Schools explains not just what the standards movement is about and why it is important, but also what it will take to bring every student up to high standards, no matter where that student starts. The authors show how a single-minded focus on achievement will change everything?from the kinds of curriculum materials we use and the design of elementary and middle schools to the abandonment of the comprehensive high school and the institution of a diploma based on meeting standards, rather than on attendance. At the heart of this revolution are the performance standards themselves, which provide clear expectations for student achievement by showing examples of standard-setting student work. Tucker and Codding focus on empowering both students and adults?by giving students the gift of high expectations and by giving school professionals the information, skills, authority and resources needed to do the job. They advocate building a standards-based instructional system, creating a results-oriented culture devoted to continuous improvement, and making the institution and the people in it accountable for reaching the goals set by the standards. This book lays out a step-by-step plan that will get struggling students to high standards as well as improve the performance of high achievers. An extremely practical book, it gives everyone involved in the education of our students the tools they need to do the job. Standards for Our Schools will be the bible of standards-based education and the foundation on which educators, parents, and policymakers can build the educational system of the future.

Download or read book Why Our Schools Need the Arts written by Jessica Hoffmann Davis and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Our Schools Suck written by Jeanne Theoharis and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shares the voices of students speaking out against the failures of urban education "Our schools suck." This is how many young people of color call attention to the kind of public education they are receiving. In cities across the nation, many students are trapped in under-funded, mismanaged and unsafe schools. Yet, a number of scholars and of public figures have shifted attention away from the persistence of school segregation to lambaste the values of young people themselves. Our Schools Suck forcefully challenges this assertion by giving voice to the compelling stories of African American and Latino students who attend under-resourced inner-city schools, where guidance counselors and AP classes are limited and security guards and metal detectors are plentiful—and grow disheartened by a public conversation that continually casts them as the problem with urban schools. By showing that young people are deeply committed to education but often critical of the kind of education they are receiving, this book highlights the dishonesty of public claims that they do not value education. Ultimately, these powerful student voices remind us of the ways we have shirked our public responsibility to create excellent schools. True school reform requires no less than a new civil rights movement, where adults join with young people to ensure an equal education for each and every student.