NCLB Meets School Realities

NCLB Meets School Realities
Author: Gail L. Sunderman
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2005-06
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9781412915557

This text details how the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is put into practice.

Many Children Left Behind

Many Children Left Behind
Author: Deborah Meier
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 115
Release: 2004-09-29
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0807004596

Signed into law in 2002, the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) promised to revolutionize American public education. Originally supported by a bipartisan coalition, it purports to improve public schools by enforcing a system of standards and accountability through high-stakes testing. Many people supported it originally, despite doubts, because of its promise especially to improve the way schools serve poor children. By making federal funding contingent on accepting a system of tests and sanctions, it is radically affecting the life of schools around the country. But, argue the authors of this citizen's guide to the most important political issue in education, far from improving public schools and increasing the ability of the system to serve poor and minority children, the law is doing exactly the opposite. Here some of our most prominent, respected voices in education-including school innovator Deborah Meier, education activist Alfie Kohn, and founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools Theodore R. Sizer-come together to show us how, point by point, NCLB undermines the things it claims to improve: * How NCLB punishes rather than helps poor and minority kids and their schools * How NCLB helps further an agenda of privatization and an attack on public schools * How the focus on testing and test preparation dumbs down classrooms * And they put forward a richly articulated vision of alternatives. Educators and parents around the country are feeling the harshly counterproductive effects of NCLB. This book is an essential guide to understanding what's wrong and where we should go from here.

No Child Left Behind

No Child Left Behind
Author: William Hayes
Publisher: R&L Education
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2008-08-14
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1578868971

While few would quarrel with the goal of the No Child Left Behind legislation, the nation is badly divided over whether the law is having a positive effect on our schools. At the same time, it is also true that most Americans, including many professional educators, have only a limited understanding of the content and scope of the legislation. As we are currently engaged in a national debate about the future role of the federal government in the field of education, it is essential that people become better informed about the history, content, and results of No Child Left Behind. This book is a valuable tool informing the current discussion on the reauthorization of the law. As a result, the reader will be better able to make up his own mind as to the direction we should take as a nation in pursuing the noble objective of ensuring that no child is left behind.

Holding NCLB Accountable

Holding NCLB Accountable
Author: Gail L. Sunderman
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 561
Release: 2008
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1412957877

By mandating high standards for all students, the No Child Left Behind Act has promised to close the achievement gap and bring all students up to proficient levels by 2014. The challenge is in connecting the goals of NCLB legislation with the realities of change in the classroom.

Collision Course

Collision Course
Author: Paul Manna
Publisher: CQ Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2010-10-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1483366308

What happens when federal officials try to accomplish goals that depend on the resources and efforts of state and local governments? Focusing on the nation′s experience with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Manna′s engaging case study considers just that question. Beyond the administrative challenges NCLB unleashed, Collision Course examines the dynamics at work when federal policymakers hold state and local governments accountable for results. Ambitions for higher performance collide with governing structures and practices. Were the collisions valuable for their potential to transform education policy, or has the law inflicted too much damage on state and local institutions responsible for educating the nation′s youth? The results have been both positive and negative. As Manna points to increased capabilities in states and localities, he also looks at expanded bureaucratic requirements. Collision Course offers a balanced and in-depth assessment of a policy that has sparked heated debate over a broad expanse of time- from NCLB′s adoption through its implementation to the Obama administration′s attempts to shift away. Federalism, the policymaking process, and the complexity of education policy all get their due in this accessible and analytical supplement.

Education Governance for the Twenty-first Century

Education Governance for the Twenty-first Century
Author: Paul Manna
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2013
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0815723946

"A Brookings Institution Press with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Center for American Progress publication America's fragmented, decentralized, politicized, and bureaucratic system of education governance is a major impediment to school reform. In this important new book, a number of leading education scholars, analysts, and practitioners show that understanding the impact of specific policy changes in areas such as standards, testing, teachers, or school choice requires careful analysis of the broader governing arrangements that influence their content, implementation, and impact. Education Governance for the Twenty-First Century comprehensively assesses the strengths and weaknesses of what remains of the old in education governance, scrutinizes how traditional governance forms are changing, and suggests how governing arrangements might be further altered to produce better educational outcomes for children. Paul Manna, Patrick McGuinn, and their colleagues provide the analysis and alternatives that will inform attempts to adapt nineteenth and twentieth century governance structures to the new demands and opportunities of today. Contents: Education Governance in America: Who Leads When Everyone Is in Charge?, Patrick McGuinn and Paul Manna The Failures of U.S. Education Governance Today, Chester E. Finn Jr. and Michael J. Petrilli How Current Education Governance Distorts Financial Decisionmaking, Marguerite Roza Governance Challenges to Innovators within the System, Michelle R. Davis Governance Challenges to Innovators outside the System, Steven F. Wilson Rethinking District Governance, Frederick M. Hess and Olivia M. Meeks Interstate Governance of Standards and Testing, Kathryn A. McDermott Education Governance in Performance-Based Federalism, Kenneth K. Wong The Rise of Education Executives in the White House, State House, and Mayor's Office, Jeffrey R. Henig English Perspectives on Education Governance and Delivery, Michael Barber Education Governance in Canada and the United States, Sandra Vergari Education Governance in Comparative Perspective, Michael Mintrom and Richard Walley Governance Lessons from the Health Care and Environment Sectors, Barry G. Rabe Toward a Coherent and Fair Funding System, Cynthia G. Brown Picturing a Different Governance Structure for Public Education, Paul T. Hill From Theory to Results in Governance Reform, Kenneth J. Meier The Tall Task of Education Governance Reform, Paul Manna and Patrick McGuinn"

Teaching with a Social, Emotional, and Cultural Lens

Teaching with a Social, Emotional, and Cultural Lens
Author: Nancy Lourié Markowitz
Publisher: Harvard Education Press
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2022-08-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1682534766

Teaching with a Social, Emotional, and Cultural Lens goes beyond existing social emotional learning programs to introduce a new framework for integrating the development of key skills needed for academic success into daily classroom practice. The framework spells out the competencies, processes, and strategies that effective P-12 educators need to employ in order to build students’ social and emotional learning. The book is based on a decade of pioneering work by the Center for Reaching and Teaching the Whole Child at San José State University, building on the work of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and on research about effective teaching and learning and culturally responsive practices. Teaching with a Social, Emotional, and Cultural Lens serves as a critical roadmap for educators, whether they are university faculty searching for how to bring a social, emotional, and cultural lens into their methods or foundations course and field work experiences, or classroom teachers hoping to infuse critical skill building into the everyday academic learning that is the traditional focus of schools.

Learning from the Federal Market?Based Reforms

Learning from the Federal Market?Based Reforms
Author: William J. Mathis
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 720
Release: 2016-06-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1681235056

Over the past twenty years, educational policy has been characterized by top?down, market?focused policies combined with a push toward privatization and school choice. The new Every Student Succeeds Act continues along this path, though with decision?making authority now shifted toward the states. These market?based reforms have often been touted as the most promising response to the challenges of poverty and educational disenfranchisement. But has this approach been successful? Has learning improved? Have historically low?scoring schools “turned around” or have the reforms had little effect? Have these narrow conceptions of schooling harmed the civic and social purposes of education in a democracy? This book presents the evidence. Drawing on the work of the nation’s most prominent researchers, the book explores the major elements of these reforms, as well as the social, political, and educational contexts in which they take place. It examines the evidence supporting the most common school improvement strategies: school choice; reconstitutions, or massive personnel changes; and school closures. From there, it presents the research findings cutting across these strategies by addressing the evidence on test score trends, teacher evaluation, “miracle” schools, the Common Core State Standards, school choice, the newly emerging school improvement industry, and re?segregation, among others. The weight of the evidence indisputably shows little success and no promise for these reforms. Thus, the authors counsel strongly against continuing these failed policies. The book concludes with a review of more promising avenues for educational reform, including the necessity of broader societal investments for combatting poverty and adverse social conditions. While schools cannot single?handedly overcome societal inequalities, important work can take place within the public school system, with evidence?based interventions such as early childhood education, detracking, adequate funding and full?service community schools—all intended to renew our nation’s commitment to democracy and equal educational opportunity.

Enduring Myths That Inhibit School Turnaround

Enduring Myths That Inhibit School Turnaround
Author: Coby V. Meyers
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2017-05-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1681238896

The concept of school turnaround—rapidly improving schools and increasing student achievement outcomes in a short period of time—has become politicized despite the relative newness of the idea. Unprecedented funding levels for school improvement combined with few examples of schools substantially increasing student achievement outcomes has resulted in doubt about whether or not turnaround is achievable. Skeptics have enumerated a number of reasons to abandon school turnaround at this early juncture. This book is the first in a new series on school turnaround and reform intended to spur ongoing dialogue among and between researchers, policymakers, and practitioners on improving the lowest-performing schools and the systems in which they operate. The “turnaround challenge” remains salient regardless of what we call it. We must improve the nation’s lowest-performing schools for many moral, social, and economic reasons. In this first book, education researchers and scholars have identified a number of myths that have inhibited our ability to successfully turn schools around. Our intention is not to suggest that if these myths are addressed school turnaround will always be achieved. Business and other literatures outside of education make it clear that turnaround is, at best, difficult work. However, for a number of reasons, we in education have developed policies and practices that are often antithetical to turnaround. Indeed, we are making already challenging work harder. The myths identified in this book suggest that we still struggle to define or understand what we mean by turnaround or how best, or even adequately, measure whether it has been achieved. Moreover, it is clear that there are a number of factors limiting how effectively we structure and support low-performing schools both systemically and locally. And we have done a rather poor job of effectively leveraging human resources to raise student achievement and improve organizational outcomes. We anticipate this book having wide appeal for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in consideration of how to support these schools taking into account context, root causes of low-performance, and the complex work to ensure their opportunity to be successful. Too frequently we have expected these schools to turn themselves around while failing to assist them with the vision and supports to realize meaningful, lasting organizational change. The myths identified and debunked in this book potentially illustrate a way forward.

NCLB Meets School Realities

NCLB Meets School Realities
Author: Gail L. Sunderman
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2005-06-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1506318401

"A timely study on the implementation of NCLB in 6 states during the initial phase of the reform. The authors′ policy recommendations will be particularly useful to policy makers and practitioners in designing more effective strategies to improve schooling quality for the least advantaged children. This book will be widely adopted in graduate courses in educational policy and intergovernmental relations." —Kenneth Wong, Professor Peabody College, Vanderbilt University "This is an important, topical book that provides a deep look at fundamental issues in the design and implementation of No Child Left Behind." —Richard F. Elmore, Gregory Anrig Professor of Educational Leadership Harvard Graduate School of Education "The well-documented and thorough approach to collecting the data is a major strength. The material fit with my experiences as a practicing principal. This book can serve as a catalyst for quality conversation that is so drastically needed about how to make NCLB do what it is intended to do—ensure that every child is successful!" —Bonnie Tryon, Principal, Golding Elementary School, Cobleskill, NY Member, 2002-2003 NAESP Board of Directors The essential guide to understanding NCLB The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is one of the biggest educational forces of our time. So why is it one of the least understood? NCLB Meets School Realities is an essential resource for educators wanting to explore and understand the issues raised by NCLB. Based on original research of 11 districts across 6 states by The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, this text details how NCLB is put into practice, the issues it raises, and how it affects minority and low-income students. The authors look closely at the implications of increased federal involvement in education, how states designed their accountability systems to meet the NCLB requirements, and the implications of the adequate yearly progress provisions for schools and students. They examine whether the transfer policy creates better schooling options for disadvantaged families, the ability of districts to implement supplemental educational services, and how teachers view the efficacy of NCLB′s reforms. They also review one provision—graduate rate accountability—in light of the national graduation rate crisis. NCLB Meets School Realities includes: Practical methods to understanding the political implications of NCLB A detailed look at how proficiency standards affect minority youth Revealing data from 11 school districts across 6 states