Download or read book The Myth and Reality of No Child Left Behind written by Todd Alan Price and published by Rlpg/Galleys. This book was released on 2009 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Students of education are aware of the story of public education, of legendary figures like Horace Mann riding from district to district trying to improve the American school by establishing a common school fund and developing teacher-training programs. Those who followed worked hard to broaden the mission and refine the institution. While advancing the distribution of textbooks, developing curriculum materials and employing testing tools, even as early as 1845, standardized testing was used to see if it all worked. Advocates used the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 to make accessible to all an education of worth for social advancement. Yet today's No Child Left Behind Act, signed in 2002 is, ironically so, a reform driven not by the advocates, but by public education's most ardent detractors. NCLB appears to be an attempt to change the public education system fundamentally, from the perspective that it is broken, its mission in need of radical revision.
Download or read book Normal Sucks written by Jonathan Mooney and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confessional and often hilarious, in Normal Sucks a neuro-diverse writer, advocate, and father meditates on his life, offering the radical message that we should stop trying to fix people and start empowering them to succeed Jonathan Mooney blends anecdote, expertise, and memoir to present a new mode of thinking about how we live and learn—individually, uniquely, and with advantages and upshots to every type of brain and body. As a neuro-diverse kid diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD who didn't learn to read until he was twelve, the realization that that he wasn’t the problem—the system and the concept of normal were—saved Mooney’s life and fundamentally changed his outlook. Here he explores the toll that being not normal takes on kids and adults when they’re trapped in environments that label them, shame them, and tell them, even in subtle ways, that they are the problem. But, he argues, if we can reorient the ways in which we think about diversity, abilities, and disabilities, we can start a revolution. A highly sought after public speaker, Mooney has been inspiring audiences with his story and his message for nearly two decades. Now he’s ready to share what he’s learned from parents, educators, researchers, and kids in a book that is as much a survival guide as it is a call to action. Whip-smart, insightful, and utterly inspiring—and movingly framed as a letter to his own young sons, as they work to find their ways in the world—this book will upend what we call normal and empower us all.
Download or read book Reign of Error written by Diane Ravitch and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the foremost authorities on education in the United States, former U.S. assistant secretary of education, “whistle-blower extraordinaire” (The Wall Street Journal), author of the best-selling The Death and Life of the Great American School System (“Important and riveting”—Library Journal), The Language Police (“Impassioned . . . Fiercely argued . . . Every bit as alarming as it is illuminating”—The New York Times), and other notable books on education history and policy—an incisive, comprehensive look at today’s American school system that argues against those who claim it is broken and beyond repair; an impassioned but reasoned call to stop the privatization movement that is draining students and funding from our public schools. In Reign of Error, Diane Ravitch argues that the crisis in American education is not a crisis of academic achievement but a concerted effort to destroy public schools in this country. She makes clear that, contrary to the claims being made, public school test scores and graduation rates are the highest they’ve ever been, and dropout rates are at their lowest point. She argues that federal programs such as George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Barack Obama’s Race to the Top set unreasonable targets for American students, punish schools, and result in teachers being fired if their students underperform, unfairly branding those educators as failures. She warns that major foundations, individual billionaires, and Wall Street hedge fund managers are encouraging the privatization of public education, some for idealistic reasons, others for profit. Many who work with equity funds are eyeing public education as an emerging market for investors. Reign of Error begins where The Death and Life of the Great American School System left off, providing a deeper argument against privatization and for public education, and in a chapter-by-chapter breakdown, putting forth a plan for what can be done to preserve and improve it. She makes clear what is right about U.S. education, how policy makers are failing to address the root causes of educational failure, and how we can fix it. For Ravitch, public school education is about knowledge, about learning, about developing character, and about creating citizens for our society. It’s about helping to inspire independent thinkers, not just honing job skills or preparing people for college. Public school education is essential to our democracy, and its aim, since the founding of this country, has been to educate citizens who will help carry democracy into the future.
Download or read book No child left behind a toolkit for teachers written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book 50 Myths and Lies That Threaten America s Public Schools written by David C. Berliner and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2014-03-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is guaranteed to spark lively debates and critical thinking in any classroom! Two of the most respected voices in education identify 50 myths and lies that threaten America's public schools. Berliner and Glass argue that many citizens conception of K12 public education in the United States is more myth than reality. Warped opinions about our nations public schools include: they are inferior to private schools; they are among the worst in the world in math and science; teachers should be fired if their students dont score at the national average, and on and on. With more than a little humor, Berliner and Glass separate fact from fiction in this comprehensive look at modern education reform. They explain how the mythical failure of public education has been created and perpetuated in large part by political and economic interests who stand to gain from its destruction. They expose a rapidly expanding variety of organizations and media that intentionally misrepresent facts. Where appropriate, they name the promoters of the hoax and point out how their interests are served by encouraging false beliefs. Their method of debunking these falsehoods is to argue against their logic, criticize the data supporting them, and present more credible contradictory data. This dynamic book features short essays on important topics to provide every teacher, administrator, school board member, and concerned parent with reliable knowledge from authoritative sources.
Download or read book The Myth of the Level Playing Field written by Jerry Fowler and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2016-12-06 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Myth of the Level Playing Field examines the idea prevalent in American culture that all Americans have a level playing field and an equal opportunity for success. It describes the essential elements of life in order to decide if there is, indeed, equal access to nutritious, affordable food; to affordable, quality healthcare; top life without risk to safety or liberty; to quality education; to affordable, safe housing; and to legal ways to make a living to support a decent lifestyle. The author, Jerry Fowler, analyzed these elements, pointing out common themes and drawing conclusions and thus recommending changes in public policy, legal philosophy, political behaviors, popular attitudes, personal responsibility, and political ideology. This book offers psychological insights as well as political and economic analysis. Any reader that suspects that the game is rigged will have those suspicions validated. Those who think that all that is required for success is hard work and persistence will come to see the fallacy of this idea. This book will generate discussion and increase awareness of the system’s inequities, foster compassion for those less fortunate, and entice them to vote for significant change in American society.
Download or read book Who s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon written by Yong Zhao and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The secrets behind China's extraordinary educational system – good, bad, and ugly Chinese students' consistently stunning performance on the international PISA exams— where they outscore students of all other nations in math, reading, and science—have positioned China as a world education leader. American educators and pundits have declared this a "Sputnik Moment," saying that we must learn from China's education system in order to maintain our status as an education leader and global superpower. Indeed, many of the reforms taking hold in United States schools, such as a greater emphasis on standardized testing and the increasing importance of core subjects like reading and math, echo the Chinese system. We're following in China's footsteps—but is this the direction we should take? Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon? by award-winning writer Yong Zhao offers an entertaining, provocative insider's account of the Chinese school system, revealing the secrets that make it both "the best and worst" in the world. Born and raised in China's Sichuan province and a teacher in China for many years, Zhao has a unique perspective on Chinese culture and education. He explains in vivid detail how China turns out the world's highest-achieving students in reading, math, and science—yet by all accounts Chinese educators, parents, and political leaders hate the system and long to send their kids to western schools. Filled with fascinating stories and compelling data, Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon? offers a nuanced and sobering tour of education in China. Learn how China is able to turn out the world's highest achieving students in math, science, and reading Discover why, despite these amazing test scores, Chinese parents, teachers, and political leaders are desperate to leave behind their educational system Discover how current reforms in the U.S. parallel the classic Chinese system, and how this could help (or hurt) our students' prospects
Download or read book Closing the Opportunity Gap written by Prudence L. Carter and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-05-30 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays highlights the differences in opportunities that exist for students in the American public school system.
Download or read book Service Learning to Advance Social Justice in a Time of Radical Inequality written by Alan S. Tinkler and published by IAP. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When considering inequality, one goal for educators is to enhance critical engagement to allow learners an opportunity to participate in an inquiry process that advances democracy. Service?learning pedagogy offers an opportunity to advance engaged?learning opportunities within higher education. This is particularly important given the power dynamics that are endemic within conversations about education, including the conversations around the Common Core, charter schools, and the privatization of education. Critical inquiry is central to the ethos of service?learning pedagogy, a pedagogy that is built upon community partner participation and active reflection. Within higher education, service?learning offers an important opportunity to enhance practice within the community, allowing students to engage stakeholders and youth which is particularly important given the dramatic inequalities that are endemic in today’s society.
Download or read book The Myth of Accountability written by Eric S. Glover and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: School improvement that is reliant on accountability is a myth based upon falsehoods and wrong assumptions. Public educations' increased dependence on this foundation for school reform and change has failed both students and teachers. The fact remains that people who create education policy do not understand what is best for individual students and classrooms. Their devised curriculum standards are, in actuality, curriculum limits that prevent students from creating successful personal and academic futures because they thwart any natural learning exploration. As such, these market-inspired, externally-motivated standards limit higher-level learning. Instead of treating students and teachers as subjects to be actively engaged in learning, accountability systems treat students and teachers like objects to be manipulated by training. By presenting the lead-teach-learn triad, Eric Glover's The Myth of Accountability discusses the pitfalls of accountability systems in schools, while also investigating how schools have somehow managed to improve in spite of their negative influences. In order to evolve school reform, Glover introduces the concept of developmental empowerment in order to frame how school participants must view themselves as perpetually changing learners and systematically update school reform. Through open inquiry, Glover encourages educators to challenge the standardization and accountability practices that limit children's futures.
Download or read book Defending Public Education from Corporate Takeover written by Todd Alan Price and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 2012-12-19 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At this moment, schools are doing everything they can to win the Race to the Top. They are allocating their funding to test preparation, riffing beloved teachers, and transferring students who “drag down” their grade average on the state report card. This book describes the current state of the education system in the United States. Readers will be on the front lines of the protests in Madison, in the inner city public-turned-charter schools, and in the shoes of the teachers dealing with educational politics every day. By the end of this text, you may beg the question: who’s winning in the Race to the Top?
Download or read book Classroom Motivation written by Eric M. Anderman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-26 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classroom Motivation is a comprehensive introduction to the practical applications of research on academic motivation to teaching and learning. Though grounded in theory, the book is uniquely structured around instructional practices that teachers use daily in schools, such as rewards, group activities, academic tasks, student assessment, and parent interaction. This thoroughly revised third edition includes new content on interventions, mindsets, technologies, engagement, and social-emotional learning. Each chapter’s case studies, application exercises, and updated empirical findings will further connect preservice teachers with motivation in practice.
Download or read book Linguistically Diverse Immigrant and Resident Writers written by Christina Ortmeier-Hooper and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-15 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spotlighting the challenges and realities faced by linguistically diverse immigrant and resident students in U.S. secondary schools and in their transitions from high school to community colleges and universities, this book looks at programs, interventions, and other factors that help or hinder them as they make this move. Chapters from teachers and scholars working in a variety of contexts build rich understandings of how high school literacy contexts, policies such as the proposed DREAM Act and the Common Core State Standards, bridge programs like Upward Bound, and curricula redesign in first-year college composition courses designed to recognize increasing linguistic diversity of student populations, affect the success of this growing population of students as they move from high school into higher education.
Download or read book No Excuses written by Stephan Thernstrom and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-07-14 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black and Hispanic students are not learning enough in our public schools, and their typically poor performance is the most important source of ongoing racial inequality in America today—thus, say Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, the racial gap in school achievement is the nation's most critical civil rights issue and an educational crisis; it's no wonder that "No Child Left Behind," the 2001 revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, made closing the racial gap in education its central goal. An employer hiring the typical Black high school graduate or the college that admits the average Black student is choosing a youngster who has only an eighth-grade education. In most subjects, the majority of twelfth-grade Black students do not have even a "partial mastery" of the skills and knowledge that the authoritative National Assessment of Educational Progress calls "fundamental for proficient work" at their grade. No Excuses marshals facts to examine the depth of the problem, the inadequacy of conventional explanations, and the limited impact of Title I, Head Start, and other familiar reforms. Its message, however, is one of hope: Scattered across the country are excellent schools getting terrific results with high-needs kids. These rare schools share a distinctive vision of what great schooling looks like and are free of many of the constraints that compromise education in traditional public schools. In a society that espouses equal opportunity we still have a racially identifiable group of educational have-nots—young African Americans and Latinos whose opportunities in life will almost inevitably be limited by their inadequate education. When students leave high school without high school skills, their futures—and that of the nation—are in jeopardy. With successful schools already showing the way, no decent society can continue to turn a blind eye to such racial and ethnic inequality.
Download or read book Enduring Myths That Inhibit School Turnaround written by Coby V. Meyers and published by IAP. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of school turnaround—rapidly improving schools and increasing student achievement outcomes in a short period of time—has become politicized despite the relative newness of the idea. Unprecedented funding levels for school improvement combined with few examples of schools substantially increasing student achievement outcomes has resulted in doubt about whether or not turnaround is achievable. Skeptics have enumerated a number of reasons to abandon school turnaround at this early juncture. This book is the first in a new series on school turnaround and reform intended to spur ongoing dialogue among and between researchers, policymakers, and practitioners on improving the lowest-performing schools and the systems in which they operate. The “turnaround challenge” remains salient regardless of what we call it. We must improve the nation’s lowest-performing schools for many moral, social, and economic reasons. In this first book, education researchers and scholars have identified a number of myths that have inhibited our ability to successfully turn schools around. Our intention is not to suggest that if these myths are addressed school turnaround will always be achieved. Business and other literatures outside of education make it clear that turnaround is, at best, difficult work. However, for a number of reasons, we in education have developed policies and practices that are often antithetical to turnaround. Indeed, we are making already challenging work harder. The myths identified in this book suggest that we still struggle to define or understand what we mean by turnaround or how best, or even adequately, measure whether it has been achieved. Moreover, it is clear that there are a number of factors limiting how effectively we structure and support low-performing schools both systemically and locally. And we have done a rather poor job of effectively leveraging human resources to raise student achievement and improve organizational outcomes. We anticipate this book having wide appeal for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in consideration of how to support these schools taking into account context, root causes of low-performance, and the complex work to ensure their opportunity to be successful. Too frequently we have expected these schools to turn themselves around while failing to assist them with the vision and supports to realize meaningful, lasting organizational change. The myths identified and debunked in this book potentially illustrate a way forward.
Download or read book Teach My Kid I Dare You written by Sherrel Bergmann and published by Eye On Education. This book was released on 2008 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book No Child Left Behind and the Reduction of the Achievement Gap written by Alan R. Sadovnik and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monumental collection presents the first-ever sociological analysis of the No Child Left Behind Act and its effects on children, teachers, parents, and schools. More importantly, these leading sociologists consider whether NLCB can or will accomplish its major goal: to eliminate the achievement gap by 2014. Based on theoretical and empirical research, the essays examine the history of federal educational policy and place NCLB in a larger sociological and historical context. Taking up a number of policy areas affected by the law—including accountability and assessment, curriculum and instruction, teacher quality, parental involvement, school choice and urban education—this book examines the effects of NCLB on different groups of students and schools and the ways in which school organization and structure affect achievement. No Child Left Behind concludes with a discussion of the important contributions of sociological research and sociological analysis integral to understanding the limits and possibilities of the law to reduce the achievement gap.
