Academies And Educational Reform
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| Author | : Richard Rothstein |
| Publisher | : Teachers College Press |
| Total Pages | : 210 |
| Release | : 2004 |
| Genre | : Education |
| ISBN | : 9780807745564 |
Contemporary public policy assumes that the achievement gap between black and white students could be closed if only schools would do a better job. According to Richard Rothstein, "Closing the gaps between lower-class and middle-class children requires social and economic reform as well as school improvement. Unfortunately, the trend is to shift most of the burden to schools, as if they alone can eradicate poverty and inequality." In this book, Rothstein points the way toward social and economic reforms that would give all children a more equal chance to succeed in school. This book features: a summary of numerous studies linking school achievement to health care quality, nutrition, childrearing styles, housing stability, parental economic security, and more ; aA look at erroneous and misleading data that underlie commonplace claims that some schools "beat the demographic odds and therefore any school can close the achievement gap if only it adopted proper practices." ; and an analysis of how the over-emphasis of standardized tests in federal law obscures the true achievement gap and makes narrowing it more difficult.
| Author | : Maria Hantzopoulos |
| Publisher | : IAP |
| Total Pages | : 268 |
| Release | : 2012-02-01 |
| Genre | : Education |
| ISBN | : 1617356859 |
Critical Small Schools: Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform features the most current empirical research about the successes and challenges of the small schools movement and the implications of such for urban public educational policy. Situated in a climate of hierarchical reform, many of the principles of the original small schools movement——which are rooted in community participation, innovative pedagogies and assessment, and equity and social justice——have become obscured by an educational agenda that emphasizes top-down mandates and standards-based reform. With the increased popularity and the rapid proliferation of small schools, the emphasis on ‘‘size only’’ has resulted in a bifurcation of the small schools movement; on one end are the small schools which have embraced the democratic, participatory, and self-governing nature of the original movement, while on the other end are schools that have simply reduced their size without rethinking school structures and practices. This book distinguishes the small schools featured and researched in this volume from schools that are simply small and labels them ““critical small schools.”” By documenting the practices that take place in various critical small schools in New York City, we show how these schools have narrowed the achievement gap and increased graduation and college acceptance rates. Although smallness is an essential feature in the design of these schools, it is certainly not the only one and this volume illuminates the other elements that contribute to these schools’’ successes and shortcomings. Critical Small Schools also challenges the recent emphasis on charter schools as a panacea for urban educational reform. By featuring research about the inner workings of public schools, this volume challenges this new direction that steers successful school development away from public education. Moreover, as every site is fraught with some tension, Critical Small Schools not only offers glimpses into intellectually vibrant and democratic learning communities, but also acknowledges that these concepts are not static and necessitate continual reflection and renewal. At this pivotal moment in educational reform, this volume provides keen insight into the challenges and possibilities of the small schools movement and is indispensable for anyone interested in comprehensive public school reform.
| Author | : National Research Council |
| Publisher | : National Academies Press |
| Total Pages | : 204 |
| Release | : 2011-07-25 |
| Genre | : Education |
| ISBN | : 0309209390 |
The District of Columbia (DC) has struggled for decades to improve its public education system. In 2007 the DC government made a bold change in the way it governs public education with the goal of shaking up the system and bringing new energy to efforts to improve outcomes for students. The Public Education Reform Amendment Act (PERAA) shifted control of the city's public schools from an elected school board to the mayor, developed a new state department of education, created the position of chancellor, and made other significant management changes. A Plan for Evaluating the District of Columbia's Public Schools offers a framework for evaluating the effects of PERAA on DC's public schools. The book recommends an evaluation program that includes a systematic yearly public reporting of key data as well as in-depth studies of high-priority issues including: quality of teachers, principals, and other personnel; quality of classroom teaching and learning; capacity to serve vulnerable children and youth; promotion of family and community engagement; and quality and equity of operations, management, and facilities. As part of the evaluation program, the Mayor's Office should produce an annual report to the city on the status of the public schools, including an analysis of trends and all the underlying data. A Plan for Evaluating the District of Columbia's Public Schools suggests that D.C. engage local universities, philanthropic organizations, and other institutions to develop and sustain an infrastructure for ongoing research and evaluation of its public schools. Any effective evaluation program must be independent of school and city leaders and responsive to the needs of all stakeholders. Additionally, its research should meet the highest standards for technical quality.
| Author | : Kenneth A. Strike |
| Publisher | : Teachers College Press |
| Total Pages | : 0 |
| Release | : 2010-04-05 |
| Genre | : Educational change |
| ISBN | : 9780807750599 |
In this insightful book, Kenneth Strike develops a new vision of school reform. Arguing that good schools are first and foremost strong communities, Strike maintains that the small schools movement is the best hope to create such schools. He shows how the core assumptions that characterize the “community paradigm” are preferable to those of standards-based reform and choice. Part I examines student disengagement as an issue largely unaddressed by current views of school reform; demonstrates that belonging is essential to authentic learning; and argues that good schools create a sense that “we are all in this together.” Good schools have a “shared educational project” and exhibit the four Cs of community: coherence, cohesion, care, and connectivity. Part II discusses the small schools movement. The author shows that small size is not sufficient to create strong communities or good schools—we cannot just downsize and hope that something good will happen. Strike looks at the educational practices and policies required to create successful small schools, and develops a view of accountability appropriate for building successful educational communities. He argues that if we expect small schools to be successful we cannot view them as simply a strategy for succeeding on standards-based reform, but rather we must see the creation of strong communities as a distinct paradigm for school reform.
| Author | : Michael Klonsky |
| Publisher | : Routledge |
| Total Pages | : 254 |
| Release | : 2008-03-25 |
| Genre | : Education |
| ISBN | : 1135899169 |
When education activists in New York, Chicago, and other urban school districts in the 1980s began the small-schools movement, they envisioned a new kind of public school system that was fair and equitable and that encouraged new relationships between teachers and students. When that movement for school reform ran head-on into the neo-conservative takeover of the Department of Education and its No Child Left Behind strategy for school change, a new model of federal power bent on the erosion of public space and the privatization of public schooling emerged. Michael and Susan Klonsky, educators who were among the early leaders of the small-schools movement, tell the story of how a once-promising model of creating new small and charter schools has been used by the neocons to reproduce many of the old inequities. Small Schools is the engaging story of what happens when the small-schools movement meets the Ownership Society.
| Author | : Institute of Medicine |
| Publisher | : National Academies Press |
| Total Pages | : 303 |
| Release | : 2003-12-21 |
| Genre | : Education |
| ISBN | : 0309084350 |
When it comes to motivating people to learn, disadvantaged urban adolescents are usually perceived as a hard sell. Yet, in a recent MetLife survey, 89 percent of the low-income students claimed "I really want to learn" applied to them. What is it about the school environmentâ€"pedagogy, curriculum, climate, organizationâ€"that encourages or discourages engagement in school activities? How do peers, family, and community affect adolescents' attitudes towards learning? Engaging Schools reviews current research on what shapes adolescents' school engagement and motivation to learnâ€"including new findings on students' sense of belongingâ€"and looks at ways these can be used to reform urban high schools. This book discusses what changes hold the greatest promise for increasing students' motivation to learn in these schools. It looks at various approaches to reform through different methods of instruction and assessment, adjustments in school size, vocational teaching, and other key areas. Examples of innovative schools, classrooms, and out-of-school programs that have proved successful in getting high school kids excited about learning are also included.
| Author | : Ethan W. Ris |
| Publisher | : University of Chicago Press |
| Total Pages | : 396 |
| Release | : 2022-06-27 |
| Genre | : Education |
| ISBN | : 022682022X |
"America's constant push to make its colleges and universities more efficient and more accountable is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, in Other People's Colleges, Ethan Ris argues that the reform impulse is baked into American higher education. For well over one hundred years, elite reformers have called for sweeping changes in the sector and raised existential questions about its sustainability. Colleges and universities have responded with a combination of resistance and acquiescence. The end result is a sector that has learned to accept top-down reform as part of its existence. When that reform is beneficial (offering major rewards for minor changes), colleges and universities know how to assimilate it. When it is hostile (attacking autonomy or values), they know how to resist it. In the early twentieth century, the "academic engineers," a cadre of elite, external reformers from foundations, businesses, and government, worked to reshape and reorganize the vast base of the higher education pyramid. Their reform efforts were largely directed at the lower tiers of higher education, but their efforts fell short, despite their wealth and power, leaving a legacy of successful resistance that affects every college and university in the United States. Today, another coalition of business leaders, philanthropists, and politicians are again demanding efficiency, accountability, and utility from American higher education. But top-down design is not destiny. Today's reform agenda in higher education should not be viewed as a new existential threat. It is a longstanding fact of life to be assimilated, diverted, or subverted on an ongoing basis"--
| Author | : Steven P. Jones |
| Publisher | : IAP |
| Total Pages | : 167 |
| Release | : 2015-08-01 |
| Genre | : Education |
| ISBN | : 1681232200 |
There is a story going around about the public schools and the people who teach in them—a story about how awful our nation’s teachers are and why we should blame teachers for the poor state of our public schools. But is the story about teachers right or fair? Why do so many people point fingers at teachers and seem to resent them so much? Blame Teachers: The Emotional Reasons for Educational Reform examines why many people blame teachers for what they understand to be the poor state of our schools. Blame comes easily to many people when they read about poor student performance and how “protected” teachers are by teachers’ unions and tenure policies. And with blame comes resentment, and with resentment comes demands for all kinds of educational reform—calls for more standardized testing, merit pay, charter schools, and all the rest. And we expect teachers to like and accept all the reforms being proposed. Conceiving educational reform out of blame and resentment aimed at teachers does no good for teachers, students, or schools. Blame Teachers outlines many of the strange and unacceptable assumptions about teaching and the purposes of education contained in these educational reforms. Intended for teachers, teacher education students, policymakers and the larger public, Blame Teachers suggests much better and more productive conversations we can have with teachers—conversations much more likely to improve teaching and learning in classrooms. The book argues for conversations with teachers that don’t begin or end with blame and resentment. In this lively, personal meditation on what it means to be a teacher, Steven Jones demonstrates how an emotional, unreasoned ‘blame game’ directed at teachers by educational reformers today is undercutting the future of the nation’s children. It is doing so by threatening to deprive them of teachers as contrasted with by?the?numbers technicians. Today’s reformers neglect the philosopher Spinoza’s time honored insight, that a person in the grip of emotion is “in human bondage” and simply cannot see the truth of things. Can educators themselves, in tandem with knowledgeable members of the public, transform the reformers’ dogmatic, harmful narrative about our teachers? Jones’ thoughtful study will surely help in this much?needed effort. ~ David T. Hansen, Weinberg Professor in the Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education, Teachers College
| Author | : Chance W. Lewis |
| Publisher | : IAP |
| Total Pages | : 208 |
| Release | : 2013-04-01 |
| Genre | : Education |
| ISBN | : 1623962323 |
Although STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) has been diversely defined by various researchers (e.g. Buck Institute, 2003; Capraro & Slough, 2009; Scott, 2009; Wolf, 2008), during the last decade, STEM education has gained an increasing presence on the national agenda through initiatives from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute for Educational Sciences (IES). The rate of technological innovation and change has been tremendous over the past ten years, and this rapid increase will only continue. STEM literacy is the power to “identify, apply, and integrate concepts from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to understand complex problems and to innovate to solve them” (Washington State STEM, 2011, Internet). In order for U.S. students to be on the forefront of this revolution, ALL of our schools need to be part of the STEM vision and guide students in acquiring STEM literacy. Understanding and addressing the challenge of achieving STEM literacy for ALL students begins with an understanding of its element and the connections between them. In order to remain competitive, the Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy has recommended that the US optimize “its knowledge-based resources, particularly in science and technology” (National Academies, 2007, p. 4). Optimizing knowledge-based resources needs to be the goal but is also a challenge for ALL educators (Scheurich & Huggins, 2009). Regardless, there is little disagreement that contemporary society is increasingly dependent on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and thus comprehensive understandings are essential for those pursuing STEM careers. It is also generally agreed that PK-12 students do not do well in STEM areas, both in terms of national standards and in terms of international comparisons (Kuenzi, Matthews, & Mangan, 2006; Capraro, Capraro, Yetkiner, Corlu, Ozel, Ye, & Kim, 2011). The question then becomes what might PK-12 schools do to improve teachers’ and students’ STEM knowledge and skills? This book will look at equity and access issues in STEM education from PK-12, university, and administrative and policy lenses.
| Author | : Linda Christensen |
| Publisher | : Rethinking Schools |
| Total Pages | : 357 |
| Release | : 2003 |
| Genre | : Educational change |
| ISBN | : 1937730468 |
