Urban Schools

After surviving another face-off with Queen Sebille and discovering the truth about her past, December Thorne's life has changed dramatically. With everyone now knowing and accepting what she truly is, and her new relationship with her mentor, her life takes a turn for the better. She finally has what she's always wanted. But when a new face arrives at Oberon Academy, things go horribly wrong. The newcomer spills secrets best kept under wraps and every bit of the happiness she's fought so hard for is threatened.

Jonathan Kozol traveled from the most blighted neighborhoods of Chicago to the urban wreckage of Camden, New Jersey; from the ghetto suburbs of Detroit to inner-city San Antonio; East St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Everywhere, he discovered separate systems of public schools, with the children of America's poor condemned to schools that are underfunded, understaffed, physically crumbling, and imbued with despair.

Despite ongoing professional development for urban educators, many inner-city school students are still not performing on high levels or even grade level. This book is a practical guide to helping educators understand the innate difficulties of transferring expertise from the experts, through the teachers, and into the students in a meaningful way that demonstrates student learning.

On the surface, Riverview High School looks like the post-racial ideal. Serving an enviably affluent, diverse, and liberal district, the school is well-funded, its teachers are well-trained, and many of its students are high achieving. Yet Riverview has not escaped the same unrelenting question that plagues schools throughout America: why is it that even when all of the circumstances seem right, black and Latino students continue to lag behind their peers?

As they say, there are a thousand ways to use a knife. If one method isn't working, don't keep doing it. It's time you try another effective method to help students see themselves and the world from a different, much better perspective.

Dark magic has infiltrated the school of necessary magic. Spies stalk the halls. Traitors whisper lies to impressionable freshmen and devious wizards distract with charming smiles. If Alison and her friends can’t see past the friendly masks of their fellow students to the dark purpose they hide, it’s not just the school that will be destroyed. But the forces of evil should have kept one thing in mind before targeting Alison Brownstone.

Dark magic is bent on destroying the school. A Drow princess is gaining powers faster than she knows what to do with them. Her best friend, a Jasper Elf, can’t remember who she is, and her boyfriend turns into a wolf at night and runs with his pack. By day, they’re trying out for the school play, worrying about who’s going to the fall dance, and oh yeah, are excited about Halloween when the dead can finally talk to the living again. Just your typical teenager in America when magic returns.

Inglaterra, 1573. Los días de la pequeña Ellyn transcurren trabajando de sol a sol en la humilde granja de su familia, paleando las heces de los animales y recibiendo los menosprecios y los golpes de su hermano Tomas. Desde que su padre quedara inválido en un accidente, y más ahora que una nueva hermanita, Agnes, ha llegado a ese mundo de miseria y privaciones, todos han de deslomarse aún más para asegurar el sustento. En esa atmósfera de brutalidad, fatiga e inmundicia, la única alegría de Ellyn es Agnes, a quien la une un vínculo muy especial.

Unsettling Choice traces the contestations that surfaced when, in the wake of the 2007-2009 Great Recession, public schools navigated austerity by expanding choice-based programs. Ujju Aggarwal argues that this strategy mobilized mechanisms rooted in market logics to recruit families with economic capital on their side, solidifying a public sphere that increasingly resembled the private.

Drow Princess Alison Brownstone begins her senior year ready to finally graduate and start her new life, fully trained and ready to kick ass. But still reeling from the attack last semester and the absence of her best friend, Alison is desperate for some kind of distraction to make the days pass quicker. And trouble in paradise with boyfriend Tanner makes it even more vital. When books start disappearing, she can’t resist digging deeper. But going down the rabbit hole leads to truths far more dangerous than petty theft.

Laylea has been hiding her entire life. She's never been to school. She's never had a friend her own age. She's never known anyone else like her. All that is about to change. In a world hidden from humans and wyrdos alike, shifters are still recovering from a vicious plot to destroy them all. They have two laws they live by now: 1) Hide. 2) Protect the children at all costs. Laylea has just broken rule number one. But she's only 14. So, they're sending her to school. Where she's going to learn.... Any place can be a prison.

You don't have to be a medical student to know the dead don't walk. Anyone who's buried a pet in the backyard knows they don't even lurch. The night shift in the morgue was supposed to be a chance to study in peace. So Giovanni is stunned when his patient sits up and starts scolding. Now he's got to convince an unbelieving medical community to take action, so he can get back to learning about the dead - not the undead!

Their senior year is wrapping up. Finals are coming up, and decisions are being made for college and life after high school. Movie nights, pranks, louper finals, and trips to the kemana - Raine and her friends are busy. Too bad the bad guys didn’t get the notice that Raine and her friends are good at multitasking - because they’re not so busy that they won’t take a break to deal with trouble one more time and save their friends and save their school.

Senior year. Two semesters remain before Raine Campbell and her friends graduate from the School of Necessary Magic. Louper finals are in full swing. Raine’s friends are trying to figure out their plans post-high school. A teacher is being threatened. And it wouldn’t be a complete semester without Dark Wizards getting involved. Some evil never learns. Also, Raine and her friends encounter a witch with a strange necklace in the kemana. When she invites them to a meeting of a secret society, things get interesting - quick.

Graduation is right around the corner, which means finals, long good-byes, and difficult decisions about the future. But Alison and friends have to make it to graduation first. Easier said than done, especially when the consequences of saving Christie’s mom come home to roost. Dead animals are discovered. Magic is stolen. And someone, or something, targets the local shifter pack.

Alison, the Drow princess, can’t even make it back to the School of Necessary Magic for her junior year without tripping across trouble hunting for her. Underground bullet trains, battles with dark magic, growing dragons, Louper tournaments, school dances, and job fairs. Growing up magical can be tough on a social life. Thank goodness she’s got her friends beside her.

The School of Necessary Magic is back in session. Alison, the young Drow princess has returned to Charlottesville for her second semester, along with the other elves, witches, and wizards and more. And her powers are growing. But dark forces have planted a bad seed in the student body. They want to use their hidden asset to close the doors before the year is over. They didn’t count on Alison and her unique gifts.

Alison is a young Drow princess whose power is just beginning to grow inside of her - too bad for the dark forces after her. They won’t see it coming. Even better...Alison’s making a few tween friends who can stand by her side.

Abby and her brother, Mike, are keeping a secret from their mother: Mike has super powers. At eight years old, Mike has the ability to make objects around him spontaneously combust. Abby, knows that his life would be in danger if anyone found out about this, so she has kept it hidden from everyone for over a year.

Deep in the woods sits an unassuming house, one not noticed by those who pass it by, but inside exists those the world has forgotten: the Unnaturals, children born with magic from an ancient source, who also possess supernatural powers that make them dangerous to the outside world. Outcasts, misunderstood, they are taken in by Miss Crabtree, the loving headmistress of the school. Here, at the School for Unnaturals, they learn to control their gifts and learn the art of spellbinding under her care.