A Nation at Risk

A Nation at Risk
Author: United States. National Commission on Excellence in Education
Publisher:
Total Pages: 82
Release: 1983
Genre: Education
ISBN:

Class and Schools

Class and Schools
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.

Education Research On Trial

Education Research On Trial
Author: Pamela B. Walters
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2009-01-13
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135856532

Read the author's commentary for the Teachers College Record here: http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=15915 It is not an exaggeration to say that the field of education has been under attack. Many, particularly in Washington, D.C., have proclaimed the research to be shoddy. They have called for new "scientific" standards for research. Randomized control trials have been promoted. In many of these discussions, the only criterion is making a more rational and scientific approach to education research. Since the federal government plays a leadership role in defining the terms of education debates, this critique is important. It stands to radically reshape research and possibly school priorities in the future. The essays in this book take up this important topic. They offer critical insight into how this debate came to flourish. Some of the authors take issue with core assertions of the debate; other are sympathetic. Taken together, they help to broaden and deepen our understanding of the efforts to revamp the field of education research and, ultimately education. The chapters also discuss the factors that facilitate, and impede, research from having an impact on policy. Teaching and Learning Goals Include: -- helps illuminate the relationship between education research and policy --critically examines key assumptions of federal legislation particularly the call for scientific rigor in the No Child Left Behind Legislation --helps students understand the broader intellectual context of this crisis in education

Revisiting "The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change"

Revisiting
Author: Seymour B. Sarason
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Total Pages: 697
Release: 1996
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0807776475

Revisiting “The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change” provocatively and seamlessly joins Seymour Sarason’s classic, landmark text on school change with his own insightful re?ections on those same issues in the face of today’s crisis in public schools. This is an extensive, monograph–length revisiting. Part I of this book reproduces the second edition of Sarason’s ground–breaking work, The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change, in which he detailed how change can affect a school’s culturally diverse environment—either through the implementation of new programs or as a result of federally imposed regulations. Throughout, many of the major assumptions about change in institutions are challenged. Speci?c events and examples demonstrate that any attempt to implement change involves some existing regularity within the school. Dr. Sarason also takes a close look at government involvement in change efforts in schooling—and includes a detailed examination of current efforts to implement PL 94–142 into public schools. He presents compelling evidence that the federal effort to change and improve schools has largely been a failure. Also included are investigations into the purposes of schooling and how these purposes can be affected by change, and the process by which educators and administrators formulate intended outcomes of change efforts. In Part II, Dr. Sarason “revisits” the text and the issues 25 years after the original publication. As he explains in his preface, to him the word crisis means “a point in time when a dangerous situation contains con?icting forces of an intensity or seriousness that in the near term will be dramatically altered depending on which forces win out. When I wrote the book a quarter century ago, I did not regard our schools as in crisis...[though] my intuition . . . was that a crisis would come sooner or later. It has, in my opinion, come.” Believing that “what happens in our cities and our schools will determine the fate of our society,” Dr. Sarason is deeply concerned that the reform arena is being manipulated by forces that are at best untroubled by and at worst intent on the dismantling of the public school system. That, coupled with his fear that even the system’s defenders are not focusing on the real issues, has infused Dr. Sarason’s return to the topic of educational change with a great sense of urgency. The important things he has to say will be welcomed by all who truly care about the state of the public schools that America’s children attend.

Possible Lives

Possible Lives
Author: Mike Rose
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 489
Release: 1996-09-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0140236171

"This big-shouldered book, full of ardor...offers us a reasonable hope that with attention and care we can again make public education what it was meant to be, and must yet be."—The Los Angeles Times.

Understanding Educational Reform

Understanding Educational Reform
Author: Raymond Horn
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2002-11-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1576078094

The only handbook of its kind to bring together materials from a wide range of authoritative works, providing the reader with a comprehensive overview of reform in American education. Crafted in ten skillfully written chapters, Educational Reform covers the history, politics, and processes of educational reform and addresses reforms in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Starting with a definition of educational reform and where its far-reaching results can lead, the work goes on to assess the role of the public in educational reform, the educational reform industry, and resistance to reform. Of interest to school boards and administrators and useful in graduate and undergraduate courses in education, it is written in a conversational tone that brings the subject out of the realm of dry analysis. Readers will benefit not only from the numerous case studies that intersperse the themes discussed, but also from the extensive bibliography of print and nonprint resources (including websites) listed for further study. There is little doubt that the classroom must change to meet the needs of the 21st century—read Educational Reform to learn just how.

Extending Educational Reform

Extending Educational Reform
Author: Amanda Datnow
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2002
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780415240703

Can a fundamental reform in the organisation of a school lead to school improvement? This shows how theory can be applied in practice to get around issues that are preventing change and improvement.