Exposes decades of rampant fraud, waste, and abuse in America's largest public school districts, analyzes how the widespread corruption has crippled schools and impeded learning, and offers a bold blueprint for reform.
Discusses how school choice, misapplied standards of accountability, the No Child Left Behind mandate, and the use of a corporate model have all led to a decline in public education and presents arguments for a return to strong neighborhood schools and quality teaching.
This book provides undergraduate and graduate students in education with an overview of urban teaching. Organized around eight authentic questions, it offers pre-service and in-service teachers opportunities for critical reflection and problem-posing not often seen in comparable course texts. This text supports staff who are looking for increasingly creative approaches to exploring key educational issues with their students.
Battle-scarred political warrior David Horowitz says it’s time for conservatives to take the gloves off—and take our country back. America is at a crucial turning point in her history, and Republicans have been losing ground to Democrats for too long. In his new book Take No Prisoners, Horowitz sounds a clarion call for conservatives to use liberals’ political playbook against them in the fight for America's future. No longer can the GOP afford to let Democrats brazenly claim the moral high ground while the Democratic agenda bankrupts hardworking Americans. No longer can the Right respond to the Left's emotional attacks with appeals to reason. Year after year, liberals have won voters' hearts and minds by selling a fantasy of moral righteousness. Republicans need to learn from Democrats' successes in order to turn the tide, David Horowitz argues, and they need to do it now. From his days as a founder of the radical New Left movement in the 1960s to his storied career as a leading conservative activist, Horowitz has a lifetime of experience in battleground politics. Now he lays out a winning political strategy for the Right that can save the country from sliding into economic and social ruin. If conservatives want a better future for America, they need to be able to beat liberals at their own game—and David Horowitz is teaching them how.
Are public charter schools more effective than traditional public schools? This book provides quantitative evidence to answer this question and considers a better way to undertake a policy of school choice. School Choice: A Balanced Approach is the most comprehensive examination of traditional public schools, public charter schools, and faith-based schools that has ever been undertaken. By considering and comparing the overall data on these three types of educational systems, it provides insight on likely outcomes of school choice programs. The author's objective is not to advance any particular agenda, but rather to provide readers with an unbiased analysis of research that has been embraced by both the G.W. Bush and Obama administrations that will allow for fresh thinking and the betterment of American education as a whole. Author William H. Jeynes, PhD, asks vital questions regarding the school choice issue that are often overlooked: Which specific programs of school choice are likely to work, and which would likely fail? Is school choice really a boon for the private sector? How might the implementation of school choice programs increase or decrease the financial burden on government budget deficits? This book carefully addresses a relevant topic that ultimately affects every American, making it essential reading for everyone from government officials and educators to students and the general public.
Journalist Joe Williams shows how parents can use consumer power to put children first, shining light on the special interests controlling our schools, where politics and pork infuse everything and our children's education is compromised. He argues that increased accountability and choice are necessary, and shows how the people can take back the education system, enhancing responsibility inherent in democracy. The solution is a new brand of hardball politics that demands competence from school leaders and shifts the power away from bureaucrats and union leaders to the people who have a the greatest reason to put kids first: concerned parents. With practical steps and uplifting examples of success, Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education is a manifesto to action.
This study focuses on governance of K-12 public schools. Governance - the work of institutions that set the rules under which schools must operate - can protect children and prevent misuse of public funds, but it can also prevent teachers and principals from doing their best for children. There are proposals to simplify governance changing by giving control to mayors, eliminating elected school boards, or eliminating local oversight entirely. This book approaches governance from a new angle: who governs is less important than what powers government has.
The organizations -- Business models -- School designs -- School culture -- Execution -- School leaders -- Politics and schools -- Academic results -- Business results.
"In response to the nationwide attacks on education in the name of educational reform packaged in No Child Left Behind, general analyses and local accounts of these attacks, as well as arguments on behalf of 'authentic educational reform' are badly needed.... This volume offers a useful combination of specific case studies, theory, and policy." - Gerald Coles, educational psychologist, US Challenging the compassionate conservative agenda for educational reform -- an agenda which seeks to improve American education through a business model focused on scripted lessons, lock-step approaches to teaching, high stakes-testing, and rigid accountability measures -- this book critiques the assumptions of this agenda, examines the problems that have riddled its implementation in schools, and suggests constructive alternatives. Educational theorists and researchers including Joel Spring, Sonia Nieto, Bill Ayers, and Susan Ohanian, classroom teachers, and parents, offer a mix of perspectives on: the social and political contexts of current educational reform initiatives; the impact of the compassionate conservative agenda on educational policies and practices; the ways in which children and teachers are affected by this agenda and its policies; and approaches that hold out hope for implementing authentic education reform. Intended for education professionals, students, and scholars, What Is Authentic Educational Reform? poses more questions than it answers, but taken together, these questions constitute a foundation for a more informed and thoughtful public conversation about how to refocus reform efforts in a direction that will truly strengthen American public education for all children and their families.
A sobering examination of the corporate funding of universities reveals the compromises being made in exchange for sponsorship, the ways in which teaching is slowly being devalued, and the changes being wrought on the futures of students everywhere. 15,000 first printing.