This book provides a guide for a long-overdue public dialogue about why and how we need to reinvent our nation's schools. How has the world changed for our children; what do all students need to know in light of these changes; how do we hold students and schools accountable for results; what do good schools look like; and what must leaders do to create more of these schools? These are some of the questions that drive this book. The answers emerging to these questions may surprise many. The most successful public schools of the 21st century look a lot more like our 19th century village schools than our current factory model of schooling. This book describes these "new village schools" that have been created in the last decade and suggests that they are a prototype for the schools of the future.
Since A Nation at Risk was published in 1983, there has been widespread recognition that public education is failing in the U.S. Numerous expensive reforms have been attempted to no avail, and costs have increased dramatically. Furthermore, economic austerity requires educational systems to do more with less. This book presents convincing evidence that paradigm change – such as the change of lighting systems from the candle to the light bulb – is the only way to significantly improve student learning and simultaneously lower costs. The authors provide a thought-provoking vision of the new paradigm, including a new brain-based pedagogy, a new professional role for teachers, a new central role for technology, and even a new more empowered role for students and parents. The authors also describe three examples – a school, a school district, and a school model – that have implemented many features of the new paradigm, along with evidence of their effectiveness. Finally, this book describes ways we can transform our Industrial-Age school systems to the new paradigm, including ways our state and federal governments can help.
Since it was first invented, Americans have been trying to re-design the American high school. One of the latest approaches funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is to find inventive high school designs that work well in one location and replicate them in other locations. The authors of this book followed a design team from Big Picture Learning as it worked to do exactly this, recording the challenges it faced, and the strategies it employed. Their accessible and entertaining account of Big Pictures work is laced with stories about scaling up by other school design teams, and in other enterprises beyond high school. Based on careful research, the book is both a practical guide to a new dimension of school reform, and also an interesting read for anyone interested in school change.
From David Osborne, the author of Reinventing Government--a biting analysis of the failure of America's public schools and a comprehensive plan for revitalizing American education. In Reinventing America's Schools, David Osborne, one of the world's foremost experts on public sector reform, offers a comprehensive analysis of the charter school movements and presents a theory that will do for American schools what his New York Times bestseller Reinventing Government did for public governance in 1992. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the city got an unexpected opportunity to recreate their school system from scratch. The state's Recovery School District (RSD), created to turn around failing schools, gradually transformed all of its New Orleans schools into charter schools, and the results are shaking the very foundations of American education. Test scores, school performance scores, graduation and dropout rates, ACT scores, college-going rates, and independent studies all tell the same story: the city's RSD schools have tripled their effectiveness in eight years. Now other cities are following suit, with state governments reinventing failing schools in Newark, Camden, Memphis, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oakland. In this book, Osborne uses compelling stories from cities like New Orleans and lays out the history and possible future of public education. Ultimately, he uses his extensive research to argue that in today's world, we should treat every public school like a charter school and grant them autonomy, accountability, diversity of school designs, and parental choice.
Lead students through powerful learning experiences with Reinventing Project-Based Learning, a guide for educators, administrators and professional development specialists who want to make the shift to a more student-driven learning model. Explore proven strategies for overcoming the limitations of the traditional classroom, including a wealth of technology tools for inquiry, collaboration and global connection to support this new vision of instructional design.
This book is for educators who believe that schools need to be improved and are hopeful that real change can be achieved. The authors argue that if educators want to create more equitable, socially just, and learner-focused schools, then they need a more robust, transformational theory of school change—an UnCommon Theory. After describing the limits of current school improvement initiatives, the authors explain what is needed to actually engage in deeper school reinvention work. They take a deep dive into the most difficult work that school leaders do: questioning, rethinking, and reinventing the fundamental assumptions upon which our schools are built. The result is a practical book that provides readers with the knowledge and tools needed to do more than just tinker at the edges of school improvement. “This book will serve as a trusty coaching guide. The writing is clear and powerful.” —From the Foreword by Joseph P. McDonald, New York University “Educators contemplating or already on the journey of re-imagining their schools will find comfort and guidance to forge ahead.” —Carl Glickman, The University of Georgia “Can help each of us become the advocates for change that results in a better future for every student in every school.” —Douglas Fisher, San Diego State University “Will support educators to think differently about what it means to not only improve schools, but to move toward sustainable change.” —Kari Thierer, School Reform Initiative
"In Vision and Action: Reinventing Schools Through Personalized Competency-Based Education, authors Charles M. Reigeluth and Jennifer R. Karnopp provide readers with a comprehensive guide to the personalized, competency-based system of education, its numerous benefits, and its implementation. This book acknowledges the challenge of transforming to a PCBE system but asserts the necessity of implementing PCBE as the system most capable of preparing students for life in the post-industrial age. The authors explain that PCBE must be implemented at all levels of education and among all school stakeholders in order to succeed. Therefore, this book is broken into two complementary and digestible aspects-vision and process. Readers will learn to define their vision of PCBE and proactively design a complete, holistic model. Next, they will learn how to realize that vision and implement the system fully throughout their schools and district. In this book, readers will find all of the knowledge and strategies they need to overcome the challenges of the change process and succeed in bringing the sorely needed PCBE system to their students and schools"--
This book considers the impact of educational policies on those who have to translate political priorities into the day-to-day work of schools and classrooms.
Have changes such as cloud computing, search engines, the Semantic Web, and mobile applications rendered such long-standing academic library services and functions as special collections, interlibrary loans, physical processing, and even library buildings unnecessary? Can the academic library effectively reconceive itself as a virtual institution? Stielow, who led the library program of the online university American Public University System, argues most emphatically that it can. His comprehensive look at web-based academic libraries synthesizes the changes wrought by the Web revolution into a visionary new model, grounded in history as well as personal experience. He demonstrates how existing functions like cataloging, circulation, collection development, reference, and serials management can be transformed by entrepreneurship, human face/electronic communicator relations, web apps, and other innovations. Online education can ensure that libraries remain strong information and knowledge hubs, and his timely book Shows how the origins and history of the academic library have laid the foundation for our current period of flux Identifies practices rooted in print-based storage to consider for elimination, and legacy services ready to be adapted to virtual operations Discusses tools and concepts libraries will embrace in a networked world, including new opportunities for library relevance in bookstore/textbook operations, compliance, library/archival/museum functions, e-publishing, and tutorial services Offers a thorough examination of the virtual library infrastructure crucial for an online learning program, with a special look at the particular needs and responsibilities of online librarians Looks at the evolving relationship between higher education and copyright, and posits how educational technology will bring further changes Bursting with stimulating ideas and wisdom gleaned from first-hand experience, Stielow’s book presents a model for offering outstanding higher education library services in an increasingly online environment.
A heated debate is raging over our nation’s public schools and how they should be reformed, with proposals ranging from imposing national standards to replacing public education altogether with a voucher system for private schools. Combining decades of experience in education, the authors propose an innovative approach to solving the problems of our school system and find a middle ground between these extremes. Reinventing Public Education shows how contracting would radically change the way we operate our schools, while keeping them public and accessible to all, and making them better able to meet standards of achievement and equity. Using public funds, local school boards would select private providers to operate individual schools under formal contracts specifying the type and quality of instruction. In a hands-on, concrete fashion, the authors provide a thorough explanation of the pros and cons of school contracting and how it would work in practice. They show how contracting would free local school boards from operating schools so they can focus on improving educational policy; how it would allow parents to choose the best school for their children; and, finally, how it would ensure that schools are held accountable and academic standards are met. While retaining a strong public role in education, contracting enables schools to be more imaginative, adaptable, and suited to the needs of children and families. In presenting an alternative vision for America’s schools, Reinventing Public Education is too important to be ignored.
