Education Reform

Teachers are the most important determinant of the quality of schools. We should be doing everything we can to help them get better. In recent years, however, a cocktail of box-ticking demands, ceaseless curriculum reform, disruptive reorganisations, and an audit culture that requires teachers to document their every move have left the profession deskilled and demoralised. Instead of rolling out the red carpet for teachers, we have been pulling it from under their feet. The result is predictable.

Author Frank "Bud" O'Lery presents a compelling exploration of the challenges facing humanity in the modern era. Drawing parallels to the metaphorical "Four Horsemen of Apocalypse," O'Lery delves into the pressing issues of overcrowding, authoritarianism, greed, and environmental crises. Urging immediate action, he proposes the establishment of Educational Oases as safe havens for humanity, fostering critical thinking, knowledge, and interpersonal skills. The book envisions these Oases as fortresses of enlightenment, safeguarding arts, knowledge, and the best of human values.

Adam Habib, the most prominent and outspoken university official through the recent student protests, takes a characteristically frank view of the past three years on South Africa's campuses in this new book. Habib charts the progress of the student protests that erupted on Wits University campus in late 2015 and raged for the better part of three years, drawing on his own intimate involvement and negotiation with the students, and also records university management and government responses to the events.

Schools may rise and fall, but education fads remain forever. When it comes to new ideas, sifting the wheat from the chaff can seem like an impossible task. Finally, help has arrived from one of Canada’s best-known education writers. A Sage on the Stage leaves no stone unturned in its relentless assault on the foolish fads infecting public education. From incomprehensible no-zero policies to discovery math that never adds up, this book debunks many of the most pervasive fads in schools today. It also lays out a positive case for the things that do work.

In These Schools Belong to You and Me, MacArthur Award-winning educator, reformer, and author Deborah Meier draws on her 50-plus years of experience to argue that the purpose of universal education is to provide young people with an "apprenticeship for citizenship in a democracy". Through an intergenerational exchange with her former colleague and fellow educator Emily Gasoi, the coauthors analyze the last several decades of education reform, challenging narrow profit-driven conceptions of school success.

We’ve all had great teachers who opened new worlds, maybe even changed our lives. What made them so great? Everyone agrees that a great teacher can have an enormous impact. Yet we still don't know what, precisely, makes a teacher great. Is it a matter of natural-born charisma? Or does exceptional teaching require something more? Building a Better Teacher introduces a new generation of educators exploring the intricate science underlying their art.

In Soar, Banks shares the experiences of individual kids from the Eagle Academy as well as his own personal story. He discusses the specific approach he and his team use to drive students, from tapping into their natural competitiveness and peer-sensitivity to finding teachers who know firsthand the obstacles these students face.

More than any other institution in the country, Georgia State has overturned the assumption that poorer students are doomed to fail. Won't Lose This Dream describes how the architects of Georgia State's success harnessed the power of evolving data technologies, a "moneyball" strategy that helped them recognize and remove the obstacles that have held poor students back. Veteran journalist Andrew Gumbel uncovers the human stories behind these innovations, tracing real students as they realize lifelong dreams of graduating from college.

Tony Little is the headmaster of Eton. One of the most progressive and imaginative people in British education today, he has hitherto kept a low profile. This title, published to coincide with his retirement, sets out his educational fundamentals. There is a crisis in the British education system. Year on year, GCSE and A Level pupils post better exam results, with more students achieving top grades. Yet business leaders and employers complain bitterly that our schools are not producing people fit for purpose.

Having watched the deterioration of academia up close for the past 50 years, Ellis locates the core of the problem in a change in the composition of the faculty during this time, from mildly left-leaning to almost exclusively leftist. He explains how astonishing historical luck led to the success of a plan first devised by a small group of activists to use college campuses to promote radical politics, and why laws and regulations designed to prevent the politicizing of higher education proved insufficient.

"At risk." "Low." "Title I kids." If you've worked with students, you've probably heard or said these coded labels that reflect deficit thinking. This focus on weakness is a pervasive, powerful judgment that continues to harm students long after they leave school. It's time for educators to hack deficit thinking, think about SEL and about strength-based teaching, and reframe teaching and learning.

The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education confronts the silent ascendancy of a therapeutic ethos across the educational system and into the workplace. Controversial and compelling, the authors’ classic text uses a wealth of examples across the education system, from primary schools to university and the workplace, to show how therapeutic education is turning children, young people, and adults into anxious and self-preoccupied individuals rather than aspiring, optimistic and resilient learners who want to know everything about the world.

Colleges fiercely defend America's deeply stratified higher education system, arguing that the most exclusive schools reward the brightest kids who have worked hard to get there. But it doesn't actually work this way. As the recent college-admissions bribery scandal demonstrates, social inequalities and colleges' pursuit of wealth and prestige stack the deck in favor of the children of privilege.

Exploding college prices and a flagging global economy, combined with the derring-do of a few intrepid innovators, have created a dynamic climate for a total rethinking of an industry that has remained virtually unchanged for a hundred years. In The End of College, Kevin Carey, an education researcher and writer, draws on years of in-depth reporting and cutting-edge research to paint a vivid and surprising portrait of the future of education.

Theodore Sizer, the founder of The Coalition of Essential Schools, was a passionate advocate for the American school system. In this, his last audiobook, he offers a vision of what a future secondary education might look like.

Ogni giorno bambini e adolescenti entrano nella più grande organizzazione del nostro paese. Cosa li accoglie? Stando alle cifre più recenti, la scuola italiana non gode di buona salute. Studenti e insegnanti faticano a trovare motivazioni davanti ai tanti problemi e all'impoverimento delle risorse a disposizione.

In Future Driven, David Geurin describes how to conquer the status quo, create authentic learning, and help your students thrive in an unpredictable world. He shares how to simultaneously be more committed to your mission while being more flexible with your methods.

With falling wages and rising inequality, persistent unemployment, failing schools, and broken cities, have America's best days come and gone? In America Needs Talent, Jamie Merisotis, a globally recognized leader in philanthropy, higher education, and public policy, explains why talent is needed to usher in a new era of innovation and success and why deliberate choices must be made by government, the private sector, education, and individuals to grow talent in America.

Community Educators: A Resource for Educating and Developing Our Youth asserts that the relationships between education, community, and democracy are inseparable and illustrates that education is broader than just schooling. This book is a call for action and responsibility both individual and collective to transform education beyond simply reforming schools.

Ever since Socrates, teaching has been a difficult and even dangerous profession. Why is good teaching such hard work? In this provocative, witty, and sometimes rueful book, David K. Cohen writes about the predicaments that teachers face. Like therapists, social workers, and pastors, teachers embark on a mission of human improvement. They aim to deepen knowledge, broaden understanding, sharpen skills, and change behavior. One predicament is that no matter how great their expertise, teachers depend on the cooperation and intelligence of their students, yet there is much that students do not know.