Education Reform

For education leaders who believe that all students deserve the premium education that only some currently experience, Shattering Inequities: Real-World Wisdom for School and District Leaders shows how your leadership can provide equitable outcomes for our most vulnerable students. Chapters include examples of actual equity leaders and leadership lessons as easily retrievable equity hooks—memory cues of complete, complex, and nuanced leadership takeaways.

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education warned, “The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.” Forty years later, are things better or worse? This book shares forty examples of how poorly today’s government schools are doing to show that the “rising tide of mediocrity” has created a tsunami of low expectations and poor performance, suggesting the need for alternative solutions.

"Kindheit 6.7", jahrelang investigativ recherchiert, ist eine Geschichte der Kindheit und zugleich Zivilisationskritik. Ein leidenschaftliches Plädoyer und Manifest für ein wieder menschenwürdiges und "artgerechtes" Aufwachsen von Kindern, für eine neue Wertschätzung der familialen Sozialisation und für vollständige Bildungsfreiheit.

On a therapist’s advice, a teacher begins journaling about her school year in an effort to be more present for her family. Her journal documents the school year from beginning to end. Since her school year starts with a bad evaluation, which gets her put on a performance plan, the journal becomes a lifeline for saying everything a "good teacher" would never say.

For more than a generation, American education has been structured as though it was built of and for concepts, not people. This has transformed education into a vast assessment, scoring, and ranking enterprise; a sales platform for high-tech entrepreneurs; and a fiercely competitive arena of advantage and status that grinds the poor and propels the middle class into debt. In When the Light Goes On, educator Mike Rose features the stories of people of all ages and backgrounds to illuminate how education has added meaning to their lives.

In From Reopen to Reinvent, distinguished education strategist Michael B. Horn delivers a provocative and eye-opening call to action for the overthrow of an education system that is not working well for any of its students. Grounded in what educators should build in its place to address the challenges that stem from widespread unmet learning needs, the book walks listeners through the design of a better path forward. It offers a prescriptive and holistic approach to the purpose of schooling, the importance of focusing on mastery for each student, and the ideal use of technology.

Since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 Americans have viewed school integration as a central tenet of the Black civil rights movement. Yet, school integration was not the only - or even always the dominant - civil rights strategy. At times, African Americans also fought for separate, Black-controlled schools dedicated to racial uplift and community empowerment.

In The Miseducation of America, Ralph Richard Banks, a Stanford Law Professor and founder of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice, argues that higher education has become a luxury good, accessible only to those who need and benefit least from the opportunity it offers.

Powerful reading and writing is fundamentally linked to civic education. The Civically Engaged Classroom is packed with practical guidance designed to support teachers in giving students the skills, knowledge, and tools to be active participants in society.

Witnessing Whiteness offers a comprehensive and empathetic exploration of what white people experience when learning about race, why it is so confusing, how whiteness works in their lives, and how to act against racism. The author combines authentic storytelling, nuanced analysis, and compelling voices from a collection of cross-race guides to lead listeners through a self-reflective process that creates clarity about today’s challenging and often contradicting messages about how to be antiracist.

College costs more today than ever and is worth less. Tuition at public colleges has more than tripled in the past 50 years. Over the same period student debt has grown from virtually nothing to more than $1.7 trillion, second only to home mortgages. Skyrocketing student-loan burdens are leading an entire generation to put off the traditional milestones of adulthood: buying homes, getting married, starting families, and saving for retirement.

I went into teaching to change the world. Instead, my students changed me. These are some of my stories. I tell them at a time when education's gone from being a noble pursuit to the epicenter of a national storm. Good teachers are leaving the field at staggering rates. Politicians and pundits are out in full force. Everyone has something to say about education - everyone except the students and teachers in the classroom.

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.

In 1954, the Supreme Court's Brown decision ended segregated schooling in the United States, but regrettably, as documented in congressional testimony and transcripts, it also ended the careers of a generation of highly qualified and credentialed Black teachers and principals. In the Deep South and northern border states over the decades following Brown, Black schools were illegally closed and Black educators were displaced en masse. By engaging with the complicated legacy of the Brown decision, Leslie T. Fenwick illuminates a crucial chapter in education history.

The Smartest Kids Know Their Options: School Alternatives for Success in the Real World empowers parents, educators, and policymakers to make informed decisions about the education of children. It offers valuable insights into the flaws of the current system and presents a wide range of alternatives that prioritize individualized learning, holistic development, and parental involvement.

Chenoweth draws on her decade-long journey into neighborhood schools where low-income students and students of color are learning at unexpectedly high levels to reveal a key ingredient to their success: in one way or another, their leaders have confronted the traditional ways that schools are organized and have adopted new systems, all focused on improvement. In profiles of once-embattled schools, Chenoweth shows how school leaders doggedly reorganized internal systems in order to prioritize teaching and learning, resulting in improved outcomes that in many cases exceeded statewide averages.

Children and adults with learning or attention challenges are not broken. They don’t need to be fixed, but they do have some roadblocks to learning as easily and enjoyably as they could. Roadblocks can be removed. A stone can be taken out of a shoe. Neuroscience research and decades of clinical evidence prove that struggles associated with dyslexia and learning disabilities can be eliminated.

To succeed in the global economy, students need to function as entrepreneurs: resourceful, flexible and creative. Researcher and Professor Yong Zhao unlocks the secrets to cultivating independent thinkers who are willing and able to create jobs and contribute positively to the globalized society. This book shows how teachers, administrators and even parents can understand the entrepreneurial spirit and harness it, foster student autonomy and leadership, champion inventive learners with necessary resources, and develop global partners and resources.

Today’s youth have a lot going against them as they trudge onto their school campuses. Sitting in cold, hard desks, they’re force-fed facts that quickly zap the joy of discovery right out of them. Next, they’re indoctrinated with progressive ideologies meant to sexualize them and incite hatred for America. The fear of a gunman kicking in their classroom door constantly looms in the back of their mind. This is the loneliest, most anxious, and depressed young generation our world has possibly ever seen. Oh, and on top of all that...they might not really be a boy or a girl.

Educators all over the country are waking to a collective realization: The hope and compassion they have for their students is not enough to counteract the inequitable policies and practices of the school system. Students and communities who have been historically disenfranchised along lines of race and disability continue to face predictable barriers to opportunity and independence. In Build Equity, Join Justice, the authors present a new path forward that leads away from deficit-focused policies and toward strengths-based practices.