Culture, Community, and Educational Success

Culture, Community, and Educational Success
Author: Crystal Polite Glover
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2018-11-09
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1498557732

Many Black, Latinx, multiracial and ethnically diverse, first-generation college students turned PhDs—tie their academic success, achievements, and ability to navigate the difficult terrain of higher education back to the critical experiences and lessons learned in their home lives and through their cultural backgrounds. For them, culture matters. This book offers an opportunity for an anti-deficit and positive examination of (Black, Latinx, and multiracial) culture and its role in creating educational efficacy among academics of color. Through personal narrative, educational and learning theory, creative writing/poetry, this hybrid text examines the cultural path to the doctorate. Transformative practice should be guided by an understanding of how an appreciation of a faculty member’s cultural, life, and social experiences can be used to establish a healthy environment that will better appreciate, engage, and retain faculty of color. Along these lines, this text also considers how cultural, life and social experiences translate into pedagogy, mentorship and value as faculty of color.

Producing Success

Producing Success
Author: Peter Demerath
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2009-12-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226142426

Middle- and upper-middle-class students continue to outpace those from less privileged backgrounds. Most attempts to redress this inequality focus on the issue of access to financial resources, but as Producing Success makes clear, the problem goes beyond mere economics. In this eye-opening study, Peter Demerath examines a typical suburban American high school to explain how some students get ahead. Demerath undertook four years of research at a Midwestern high school to examine the mercilessly competitive culture that drives students to advance. Producing Success reveals the many ways the community’s ideology of achievement plays out: students hone their work ethics and employ various strategies to succeed, from negotiating with teachers to cheating; parents relentlessly push their children while manipulating school policies to help them get ahead; and administrators aid high performers in myriad ways, even naming over forty students “valedictorians.” Yet, as Demerath shows, this unswerving commitment to individual advancement takes its toll, leading to student stress and fatigue, incivility and vandalism, and the alienation of the less successful. Insightful and candid, Producing Success is an often troubling account of the educationally and morally questionable results of the American culture of success.

Culture Re-Boot

Culture Re-Boot
Author: Leslie S. Kaplan
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2013-01-29
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1452277958

Your start-up menu for super-charged culture change There′s an invisible thread woven through your school that defines everything from dress codes to student success. It′s your school culture, and reshaping it will yield highly visible improvements for teachers and students. Leslie Kaplan and William Owings guide you in improving leadership, teaching, learning, confidence, and trust throughout your school. Culture Re-Boot reframes school culture to include organizational learning, relational trust, accountability, program improvement, and teacher effectiveness while showing you how to: • Be the transformational leader your school needs to reinvigorate your school culture • Establish a student-centered learning culture focused on student outcomes • Engage teachers in culture-focused leadership teams that support teacher and student learning • Get parents and community on-board to collaborate for student achievement • Connect professional development and school culture for maximum results Packed with hands-on culture re-boot activities to help school leaders and faculty revitalize their school′s values and practices, this practical handbook for school improvement will energize your school′s culture and build the capacity to help all students succeed. "Ever since Seymour Sarason wrote his seminal book on The Culture of Schools and the Problem of Change, we have known that ′culture′ is at the heart of all organizational performance. But reformers keep forgetting this key fact. Kaplan and Owings′ book changes all that. Now in one place you can find everything you need to know to ′re-boot′ you own school′s culture." —Michael Fullan, Author of Motion Leadership "As a principal focused on student achievement and school climate, I am excited to begin using these strategies and discussions to drive our conversations to a deeper and more meaningful level. The combination of school culture, professional learning community, and teacher/community leadership provides a compelling and unique exploration of real methods to sustain student achievement and school improvement." —William Richard Hall, Jr., Principal R. C. Longan Elementary School, Henrico, VA

The Shaping School Culture Fieldbook

The Shaping School Culture Fieldbook
Author: Kent D. Peterson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2011-01-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1118047591

When the bestselling books Shaping School Culture and The Shaping School Culture Fieldbook were first published, Kent D. Peterson and Terrence E. Deal described the critical elements of school culture the purposes, traditions, norms, and values that guide and glue the community together. The authors showed how a positive culture makes school reform work and the companion Fieldbook included the tools needed to bring out the best in students, teachers, and the surrounding community In today's complex educational environment, new challenges have surfaced for school leaders who must grapple with issues of standards-based testing, school accountability, and student achievement. The second edition of The Shaping School Culture Fieldbook offers a companion to the newly revised edition of Shaping School Culture and includes an expanded version of Peterson and Deal's time-tested model to address the latest thinking on school culture and change. The Fieldbook offers a wealth of new ideas and approaches and includes new material on "toxic" environments with specific action plans. In addition, the book contains powerful new case examples for revitalizing school culture. The Shaping School Culture Fieldbook draws on the authors' extensive research and nationwide school contacts and includes hands-on strategies and exercises for helping school leaders: Uncover a school's hidden values, beliefs, and assumptions Think through and develop a school's mission and purpose Work out appropriate stories, metaphors, and symbols to represent a school Devise rituals and ceremonies for enriching the school experience Rethink leadership practices in light of educational and cultural needs Identify, transform, and heal a "toxic" educational culture This important resource will help school leaders understand, assess, and transform school culture for organizational success.

Defining Student Success

Defining Student Success
Author: Lisa M. Nunn
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2014-04-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0813563631

The key to success, our culture tells us, is a combination of talent and hard work. Why then, do high schools that supposedly subscribe to this view send students to college at such dramatically different rates? Why do students from one school succeed while students from another struggle? To the usual answer—an imbalance in resources—this book adds a far more subtle and complicated explanation. Defining Student Success shows how different schools foster dissimilar and sometimes conflicting ideas about what it takes to succeed—ideas that do more to preserve the status quo than to promote upward mobility. Lisa Nunn’s study of three public high schools reveals how students’ beliefs about their own success are shaped by their particular school environment and reinforced by curriculum and teaching practices. While American culture broadly defines success as a product of hard work or talent (at school, intelligence is the talent that matters most), Nunn shows that each school refines and adapts this American cultural wisdom in its own distinct way—reflecting the sensibilities and concerns of the people who inhabit each school. While one school fosters the belief that effort is all it takes to succeed, another fosters the belief that hard work will only get you so far because you have to be smart enough to master course concepts. Ultimately, Nunn argues that these school-level adaptations of cultural ideas about success become invisible advantages and disadvantages for students’ college-going futures. Some schools’ definitions of success match seamlessly with elite college admissions’ definition of the ideal college applicant, while others more closely align with the expectations of middle or low-tier institutions of higher education. With its insights into the transmission of ideas of success from society to school to student, this provocative work should prompt a reevaluation of the culture of secondary education. Only with a thorough understanding of this process will we ever find more consistent means of inculcating success, by any measure.

Issues in Latino Education

Issues in Latino Education
Author: Mariella Espinoza-Herold
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2017-04-21
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1315392259

This critical case study exposes the educational realities of Latinos in K-12 public schools in the Western United States from the students’ own perspectives. Issues that are often over simplified and commonly misunderstood are brought to life. Their accounts are then compared with the viewpoints of a range of K-12 teachers on matters of community, learning, race, culture, and school politics.

Culturally Proficient Learning Communities

Culturally Proficient Learning Communities
Author: Delores B. Lindsey
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2009-08-03
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1452273006

"Cultural proficiency challenges learning communities to go even deeper when inquiring about student barriers to success. This perspective is necessary to truly address the achievement and expectation gaps in our schools. Before we ask ourselves why our students are not succeeding, we must understand and examine our own perceptions and assumptions about them." —Timothy A. Bias, Administrator Pomona Unified School District, CA Close the achievement gap with equity-focused professional learning communities! Professional learning communities (PLCs) can be a powerful force for creating equitable, inclusive schools where all students succeed. Integrating the four Tools of Cultural Proficiency with the PLC framework, this relevant guide offers school leaders, district administrators, and staff developers a collaborative approach to address bias and inequity. Culturally Proficient Learning Communities discusses the impact of our history on cultural understanding and provides a wealth of practical PLC-building strategies—including assessment and inquiry-driven planning, instructional design, curriculum development, coaching, leadership, and shared decision making. The authors examine the goals, purpose, and process of creating and sustaining equity-focused PLCs through: Templates, protocols, activities, and rubrics for deconstructing inequity in student achievement Stories, tools, and thinking prompts to guide an inside-out transformation toward cultural proficiency An extended example of one school district′s journey in becoming a culturally proficient learning community Schools that view diversity and differences as assets and opportunities will experience stronger holistic growth and increased academic achievement!

Beyond the Bake Sale

Beyond the Bake Sale
Author: Anne T. Henderson
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
Total Pages: 522
Release: 2010-07-09
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1458781135

Countless studies demonstrate that students with parents actively involved in their education at home and school are more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, enroll in higher-level programs, graduate from high school, and go on to post-secondary education. Beyond the Bake Sale shows how to form these essential partnerships and how to make them work. Packed with tips from principals and teachers, checklists, and an invaluable resource section, Beyond the Bake Sale reveals how to build strong collaborative relationships and offers practical advice for improving interactions between parents and teachers, from insuring that PTA groups are constructive and inclusive to navigating the complex issues surrounding diversity in the classroom. Written with candor, clarity, and humor, Beyond the Bake Sale is essential reading for teachers, parents on the front lines in public schools, and administrators and policy makers at all levels.

Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools

Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools
Author: Tyrone C. Howard
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2019
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0807778079

Issues tied to race and culture continue to be a part of the landscape of America’s schools and classrooms. Given the rapid demographic transformation in the nation’s states, cities, counties, and schools, it is essential that all school personnel acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions to talk, teach, and think across racial and cultural differences. The second edition of Howard’s bestseller has been updated to take a deeper look at how schools must be prepared to respond to disparate outcomes among students of color. Tyrone Howard draws on theoretical constructs tied to race and racism, culture and opportunity gaps to address pressing issues stemming from the chronic inequalities that remain prevalent in many schools across the country. This time-honored text will help educators at all levels respond with greater conviction and clarity on how to create more equitable, inclusive, and democratic schools as sites for teaching and learning. “If you thought the first edition of Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools was impactful, this second edition is even more of a force to be reckoned with in the fight for social justice. By pushing the boundaries of the ordinary and the normative, this book teaches as it transforms. Every educator, preservice and inservice, working with racially, linguistically, and culturally diverse young people should read this book.” —H. Richard Milner IV, Cornelius Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of Education, Vanderbilt University “On the 10th anniversary of this groundbreaking book, Tyrone Howard not only reminds me of the salient role that race and culture play in education, but also moves beyond a Black–White binary that reflect the nuances and contours of diversity. This book should be in the hands of all teachers and teacher educators.” —Maisha T. Winn, Chancellor’s Leadership Professor, School of Education, University of California, Davis