Americas Schools

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.

Near the start of the 19th century, as the newly established United States looked outward toward the wider world, a group of eminent Protestant ministers formed a grand scheme for gathering the rest of mankind into the redemptive fold of Christianity and "civilization". Its core element was a special school for "heathen youth" drawn from all parts of the Earth, including the Pacific Islands, China, India, and increasingly, the native nations of North America. If all went well, graduates would return to join similar projects in their respective homelands.

¿Qué tan chinescos y poblanos son realmente los orígenes de la china poblana, emblema de la feminidadmexicana? ¿Cómo fue posible que la imagen de la Patria, aquella que aparecía en la portada de los libros de texto gratuito, combinara elementos griegos y prehispánicos, con una toga heredada de la Revolución francesa, en una extravagante alegoría del progreso? José Luis Trueba Lara contesta a estas preguntas adentrándose en las historias detrás de ocho símbolos del nacionalismo

Every morning, I'm up at four o'clock. I brush my teeth, get dressed, and drag my sister Melanie to the car where Mami's waiting for us. ¡Se nos va hacer tarde! ¡Apurarse! For the next two hours, we'll be in the car driving—past tamale vendors (my favorite part), through la linea (my least favorite part), and across the US border. That's how we get to school every day. This is our normal. ¡Vamos!

Objectively, one could argue that the government schools are fine. If you ignore the schools' complete inability to educate children, they are doing fine indeed. This book exposes the lies you've been told from cradle to grave about the worst educational system on the planet. You also learn the only reasonable option available to all parents who love their children. YES, the answer is here. For any and all parents, single or married. And the answer to protect your children is simple and virtually free.

One of Argentina's 30,000 "disappeared", Alicia Partnoy was abducted from her home by secret police and taken to a concentration camp where she was tortured, and where most of the other prisoners were killed. Her writings were smuggled out of prison and published anonymously in human rights journals. The Little School is Alicia Partnoy's memoir of her disappearance and imprisonment in Argentina in the 1970s.

Born in the picturesque town of Taxco, Mexico, Julissa Arce was left behind for months at a time with her two sisters, a nanny, and her grandma while her parents worked tirelessly in America in hopes of building a home and providing a better life for their children. That is, until her parents brought Julissa to Texas to live with them. From then on, Julissa secretly lived as an undocumented immigrant, went on to become a scholarship winner and an honors college graduate, and climbed the ladder to become a vice president at Goldman Sachs.

David Ellison wrote Repairing Our Divided Nation because he, like so many others, is frustrated with the division he sees in our nation, particularly when it comes to race and politics. In his desire to help create a better world for all - no matter one’s color or political persuasion - Ellison studied the works of some of the world’s most respected scholars and summaries of notable Supreme Court cases that continue to negatively impact society today.

This audiobook explains the history behind how colleges derived their nicknames, mascots, and school colors. Gary Hudson chose to focus the attention of his book on schools that have Division 1A football programs because all the athletic programs at those schools will also compete in Division 1A sports. Consequently, those schools tend to get more exposure in the media, thereby drawing more attention and curiosity to the college sports fan.

The lessons of history are real life lessons. That is because history is real life. History is the study of the future. This book gives the high school students a dozen real life lessons and how to use history to see the future.

Sixteen historians, all members of the Society of Independent Southern Historians, have come together to write this truthful history of America specifically for home-schooled students. Herein is a history that is truthful, concise, yet comprehensive, written especially for students of middle school and high school age and for the parents who provide guidance through the home school educational approach. The 40 student lessons in this book present 278 years of our history.

In The Indian Card, Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz grapples with these contradictions. Through in-depth interviews, she shares the stories of people caught in the mire of identity-formation, trying to define themselves outside of bureaucratic processes. With archival research, she pieces together the history of blood quantum and tribal rolls and federal government intrusion on Native identity-making.

It is 1792. I am now grown up and 18 years old. I talk my 11-year-old brother, Nathaniel Cooley Chapman, into going west with me. Ours is a roaming life, walking barefoot and wearing raggedy clothes. We live off the land and take odd jobs. Why do you think that we might wear pans for hats?

From the perspective of the young adult he was then, Francisco Jiménez describes the challenges he faced in his efforts to continue his education. During his college years, the very family solidarity that allowed Francisco to survive as a child is tested. Not only must he leave his family behind when he goes to Santa Clara University, but while Francisco is there, his father abandons the family and returns to Mexico.

Every morning, I'm up at four o'clock. I brush my teeth, get dressed, and drag my sister Melanie to the car where Mami's waiting for us. ¡Se nos va hacer tarde! ¡Apurarse! For the next two hours, we'll be in the car driving—past tamale vendors (my favorite part), through la linea (my least favorite part), and across the US border. That's how we get to school every day. This is our normal. ¡Vamos!

Meet Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, once just a girl growing up in The Bronx, New York, with her brother and Puerto Rican-born parents. From a young age, her mother emphasized the value of education. Sonia would eventually graduate summa cum laude from Princeton University, receive a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, and later begin working as an assistant district attorney for New York County. Throughout her decades-long career, Sonia Sotomayor has been driven by her commitment to justice, inspiring young people to follow their dreams and strive to make them reality.

The last "Indian War" was fought against Native American children in the dormitories and classrooms of government boarding schools. Only by removing Indian children from their homes for extended periods of time, policymakers reasoned, could white "civilization" take root while childhood memories of "savagism" gradually faded to the point of extinction. In the words of one official: "Kill the Indian and save the man."

By winning the state high school basketball championship in 1955, ten teens from an Indianapolis school meant to be the centerpiece of racially segregated education in the state shattered the myth of their inferiority. Their brilliant coach had fashioned an unbeatable team from a group of boys born in the South and raised in poverty. Anchored by the astonishing Oscar Robertson, a future college and NBA star, the Crispus Attucks Tigers went down in history as the first state champions from Indianapolis and the first all-black team in U.S. history to win a racially open championship tournament.

No topic is more polarizing than guns and gun control. From a gun culture that took root early in American history to the mass shootings that repeatedly bring the public discussion of gun control to a fever pitch, the topic has preoccupied citizens, public officials, and special interest groups for decades. The Gun Debate: What Everyone Needs to Know® delves into the issues that Americans debate when they talk about guns. With a balanced and broad-ranging approach, noted economist Philip J. Cook and political scientist Kristin A. Goss thoroughly cover the latest research.

In a heartwarming first-person account, dePaola retells his experiences at home and in school when he was a boy. 26 Fairmount Avenue is full of humor, drama, suspense and just the day-to-day ups and downs of a little boy's life.