Social Reform

In Educational Pluralism and American Democracy, education policy expert Ashley Rogers Berner envisions a K-12 education system that serves both the individual and the common good. Calling for education reform that will enable US public schools to fulfill the longstanding promise of American education, Berner proposes a radical reimagining of both the structure and content of US public school systems. She urges policymakers to embrace educational pluralism, an internationally common model in which the government funds diverse types of schools that deliver more universal content.

"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.

Making a case for the "fierce urgency of now", this new edition deepens the discussion of race and social justice in education with new and updated material. Aligned with our nation's ever more diverse student population, it speaks to what good teachers know, what they do, and how they embrace culturally responsive teaching. This essential text is widely used in teacher preparation courses and for in-service professional development.

Savannah Shange explores the potential for reconciling the Robeson Justice Academy's marginalization of Black students with its sincere pursuit of multiracial uplift and solidarity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and six years of experience teaching at the school, Shange outlines how it fails its students and the community because it operates within a space predicated on antiblackness. Seeing San Francisco as a social laboratory for how Black communities survive the end of their worlds, Shange argues for abolition over revolution or reform as the needed path toward Black freedom.

A lawyer, arbitrator, and judge, as well as a politicial activist and feminist, Nancy Morrison practiced law and adjudicated in Ontario, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. For more than 50 years, she has been a public speaker on social and political issues. As a judge, she served for nine years on the British Columbia Provincial court, 1972-1981, including three years as a vice-chair of the BC Labour relations board; and 15 years on the Supreme Court of British Columbia, 1996-2011. Raised in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, she now lives in Vancouver.

During his years as a public official, Mitchell Weiss was told that government can't do new things or solve tough challenges - it's too big and slow and bureaucratic. Sadly, this is what so many of us have come to believe. But in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, he and his city hall colleagues raced to support survivors in new, innovative ways. This kind of entrepreneurial spirit and savvy in government is growing, transforming the public sector's response to big problems at all levels.

In the magical fairytale kingdom of Enchantasia, becoming a legendary prince or princess doesn't happen overnight. Enter Royal Academy, the training ground for the fairytale leaders of tomorrow! But reluctant future princess and new student Devin has some reservations about RA, especially when it comes to its headmistress. Olivina seems obsessed with preparing students for possible villain attacks. But when Devin asks when they're going to learn how to actually rule a kingdom, Olivina becomes enraged. Something isn't right with this lady.

Anyone who has ever crammed for a test, capitulated to a grade-grubbing student, or fretted over a child's report card knows that the way we assess student learning in American schools is freighted with unintended consequences. As experts agree, our primary assessment technologies—grading, rating, and ranking—don't actually provide an accurate picture of how students are doing in school. In Off the Mark, Jack Schneider and Ethan Hutt explain how we got into this predicament, why we remain beholden to outmoded forms of assessment, and what we can do to change course.

Shakespeare professor and prison volunteer Laura Bates thought she had seen it all. That is, until she decided to teach Shakespeare in a place the bard had never been before - supermax solitary confinement. In this unwelcoming place, surrounded by inmates known as the worst of the worst, is Larry Newton.

In The Price of Justice, Goldfarb uses powerful testimonies, media evidence, and first-hand expertise from working in the Justice Department as a longtime public interest lawyer to reveal how both the criminal and civil justice systems fail to serve lower and middle-class citizens and makes an undeniable case for the profound justice reform that is so desperately needed. Goldfarb asks that we examine closely a legal system that has become largely pay-to-play, benefiting the administrators and those wealthy citizens who can afford to “lawyer up”.

With Mental Health, Inc., award-winning investigative journalist Art Levine delivers a Shock Doctrine-style exposé of the failures of our out-of-control, profits-driven mental health system, with a special emphasis on the failures of the pharmaceuticals industry, including the treatment of children with antipsychotics and disastrous PTSD protocols for veterans.

In this book, Katherine Beckett explains how and why mass incarceration persists despite growing recognition of its many failures, plummeting crime rates, and widespread efforts by state legislators and others to reduce prison populations. Beckett identifies three primary forces sustaining incarceration rates in this country: political dynamics around violence, resistance to criminal legal system reform in suburban and rural counties, and the failure of popular drug policy reforms to reduce the reach of the criminal legal system.

When parents send their children off to college, Mom and Dad hope they'll return more cultivated, knowledgeable, and astute - able to see issues from all points of view. But, according to Ben Shapiro, there's only one view allowed on most college campuses: a rabid brand of liberalism that must be swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

In Punished for Dreaming Dr. Bettina Love argues forcefully that Reagan’s presidency ushered in a War on Black Children, pathologizing and penalizing them in concert with the War on Drugs. New policies punished schools with policing, closure, and loss of funding in the name of reform, as white savior, egalitarian efforts increasingly allowed private interests to infiltrate the system. These changes implicated children of color, and Black children in particular, as low performing, making it all too easy to turn a blind eye to their disproportionate conviction and incarceration.

In his book, Peter Hitchens describes the misjudgements made by politicians over the years that have led to the increase of class distinction and privilege in our education system. This is of course the opposite of what was intended, especially by former Minister of Education Shirley Williams and Margaret Thatcher, her successor in that role, who closed down many more Grammar Schools than Williams.

Different minds learn differently. We must pay attention to individual learning patterns, to individual minds so that we can maximize children's performance in school and in life. In A Mind at a Time, Dr. Levine shows us how.

Has American democracy's long, ambitious run come to an end? Possibly yes. As William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe argue in this trenchant new analysis of modern politics, the United States faces a historic crisis that threatens our system of self-government - and if democracy is to be saved, the causes of the crisis must be understood and defused.

In How Children Succeed, Paul Tough introduced us to research showing that personal qualities like perseverance, self-control, and conscientiousness play a critical role in children's success. Now, in Helping Children Succeed, Tough takes on a new set of pressing questions: What does growing up in poverty do to children's mental and physical development? How does adversity at home affect their success in the classroom, from preschool to high school?

Gilly's gone from zero to hero at Fairy Tale Reform School, but it's still not smooth sailing. Her new villainous professor is the infamous pirate Blackbeard, and her newfound cool factor might be making her act a bit more royal than she'd like to admit. When The Wicked One, aka Sleeping Beauty's nemesis, breaks the Evil Queen out of the dungeon, Gilly realizes the kingdom is still far from safe.

On December 16, 2019, Jerrold Nadler, Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives, and the full Committee on the Judiciary released an updated version of the Impeachment Report. Now officially titled Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, Report of the Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives, this document serves as the latest government-issued report from the Democrat-led House.