Horace Mann's Vision of the Public Schools

Horace Mann's Vision of the Public Schools

Author: William Hayes

Publisher: R & L Education

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13:

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Horace Mann has been labeled by historians as the "father of the public schools." Just as judges and historians consult the views of the nation's Founding Fathers for guidance on contemporary issues, current educators can benefit by revisiting the original vision of Horace Mann for publicly supported schools. Such a study will not only be of interest to anyone interested in our schools, but it will also offer guidance as we consider our current educational issues. Much has changed since Horace Mann led the struggle to establish the common or public schools in the mid-19th century. Drastic changes in demographics, the emergence of teacher unions, and more recently, the standards movement, high-stakes testing, and accountability have greatly affected public schools. These factors, along with the additional powers taken on by the state and federal government have altered how schools function. The result has been the creation of a system that currently fails to offer an equal educational opportunity to all of our students. This book looks to the educational ideas of Horace Mann to offer guidance as to how this nation might preserve his original vision of a public school system that will offer a free and equal educational opportunity to all the children of this nation.


Saving Schools

Saving Schools

Author: Paul E. Peterson

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2010-03-30

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 9780674050112

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In this book Peterson interprets the history of American schools by placing major educational reformers in the context of their times and relates their thinking to our own era by scrutinizing the often unanticipated consequences of their commitments and ideas. These extraordinary individuals provided the critical ideas and articulated the ideals that motivated many others to search for ways to save the schools from the limitations in which they were embedded: Horace Mann, John Dewey, Martin Luther King, Al Shanker, William Bennett, and James S. Coleman. The drive to centralize was pervasive despite repeatedly expressed reform desire to customize education. Peterson argues that education has become an increasingly labor intensive industry that must reverse direction and become more capital intensive or it will descend in quality. Fortunately, technological change is making it possible radically alter the way in which education services are delivered, providing a new chance to save our schools.


The Teacher Wars

The Teacher Wars

Author: Dana Goldstein

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2015-08-04

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0345803620

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A groundbreaking history of 175 years of American education that brings the lessons of the past to bear on the dilemmas we face today—and brilliantly illuminates the path forward for public schools. “[A] lively account." —New York Times Book Review In The Teacher Wars, a rich, lively, and unprecedented history of public school teaching, Dana Goldstein reveals that teachers have been embattled for nearly two centuries. She uncovers the surprising roots of hot button issues, from teacher tenure to charter schools, and finds that recent popular ideas to improve schools—instituting merit pay, evaluating teachers by student test scores, ranking and firing veteran teachers, and recruiting “elite” graduates to teach—are all approaches that have been tried in the past without producing widespread change.


The American Nation

The American Nation

Author: Bruce Frohnen

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 620

ISBN-13:

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The American Nation makes available, in one volume, many of the most crucial documents necessary for understanding the variety of policies and viewpoints driving American public life during an important, substantive part of American history. The primary sources in The American Nation are relevant to the Civil War, Reconstruction, the rise of a national capitalist system and culture, the waves of reform-minded thought and policy that moved the nation toward formation of the national administrative and welfare states, and Americaʹs emergence as a major power on the world stage. This period was a watershed in the history of the nation -- the time of establishing and consolidating national power and laying the foundations of a national government committed to promoting the material well-being of Americans. It was an era that witnessed the development of the nation-state and the establishment of the New Deal regime, which set the stage for the radical social movements of the 1960s and beyond.


Unconditional Education

Unconditional Education

Author: Robin Detterman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-03-19

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0190886528

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After decades of reform, America's public schools continue to fail particular groups of students; the greatest opportunity gaps are faced by those whose achievement is hindered by complex stressors, including disability, trauma, poverty, and institutionalized racism. When students' needs overwhelm the neighborhood schools assigned to serve them, they are relegated to increasingly isolated educational environments. Unconditional Education (UE) offers an alternate approach that transforms schools into communities where all students can thrive. It reduces the need for more intensive and costly future remediation by pairing a holistic, multi-tiered system of supports with an intentional focus on overall culture and climate, and promotes systematic coordination and integration of funding and services by identifying gaps and eliminating redundancies to increase the efficient allocation of available resources. This book is an essential resource for mental health and educational stakeholders (i.e., school social workers, therapists, teachers, school administrators, and district-level leaders) who are interested in adopting an unconditional approach to supporting the students within their schools.


Democracy's Schools

Democracy's Schools

Author: Johann N. Neem

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2017-08

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1421423219

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The unknown history of American public education. At a time when Americans are debating the future of public education, Johann N. Neem tells the inspiring story of how and why Americans built a robust public school system in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. It’s a story in which ordinary people in towns across the country worked together to form districts and build schoolhouses and reformers sought to expand tax support and give every child a liberal education. By the time of the Civil War, most northern states had made common schools free, and many southern states were heading in the same direction. Americans made schooling a public good. Yet back then, like today, Americans disagreed over the kind of education needed, who should pay for it, and how schools should be governed. Neem explores the history and meaning of these disagreements. As Americans debated, teachers and students went about the daily work of teaching and learning. Neem takes us into the classrooms of yore so that we may experience public schools from the perspective of the people whose daily lives were most affected by them. Ultimately, Neem concludes, public schools encouraged a diverse people to see themselves as one nation. By studying the origins of America’s public schools, Neem urges us to focus on the defining features of democratic education: promoting equality, nurturing human beings, preparing citizens, and fostering civic solidarity.


Leadership in America's Best Urban Schools

Leadership in America's Best Urban Schools

Author: Joseph F. Johnson, Jr.

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-02-03

Total Pages: 171

ISBN-13: 1317412397

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Leadership in America’s Best Urban Schools describes and demystifies the qualities that successful leaders rely on to make a difference at all levels of urban school leadership. Grounded in research, this volume reveals the multiple challenges that real urban elementary, middle, and high schools face as well as the catalysts for improvement. This insightful resource explores the critical leadership characteristics found in high-performing urban schools and gives leaders the tools to move their schools to higher levels of achievement for all students—but especially for those who are low-income, English-language learners, and from various racial and ethnic backgrounds. In shining a light on the essential qualities for exceptional leadership at all levels of urban schools, this book is a valuable guide for all educators and administrators to nurture, influence, support, and sustain excellence and equity at their schools.