Left Behind in the Race to the Top
Left Behind in the Race to the Top

Author: Julie A. Gorlewski

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2013-08-01

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1623963303

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Public education is suffering attacks that are well funded and extraordinarily complex and multifaceted. These conditions make it difficult for educators and citizens to gather the information they need to mount meaningful resistance, especially since mainstream media tends to be uncritically supportive of neoliberal reforms. The Orwellian language of reforms is adopted and promoted through news outlets, politicians, and film; thus, arguments against these reforms must bubble up through social media and alternative outlets. By providing a coherent, comprehensive description of contemporary neoliberal initiatives and analyzing their effects on students, teachers, administrators, and teacher education, this book will allow educators, parents, students, and citizens to strengthen their resolve to save public education and, potentially, work to preserve the promise of democracy. This book examines and uncovers the effects of standardization and privatization on public education. Contributors consider the how of standardized curriculum and assessment, coupled with philanthropic and corporate pressure, have influenced the experiences of students, parents, and teachers. Divided in sections entitled Testing, Testing; Privatization and Militarization: Redefining Schools; Alienation: Displacing Students and Teachers; and Resistance: Opting Out and Hope for Change, this text offers a combination of information and inspiration for teachers, teacher educators, policymakers, parents and anyone interested in understanding the current state of public education.

The Race to the Top
The Race to the Top

Author: Tomas Larsson

Publisher: Cato Institute

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 9781930865143

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Larsson takes the reader on a fast-paced, worldwide journey that extends from the slums of Rio to the brothels of Bangkok and shows what access to global markets means for those struggling to get ahead in the world.

Race to the Bottom
Race to the Bottom

Author: Luke Rosiak

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2022-03-08

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0063056739

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Everyone wants: High schoolers to graduate well-prepared for jobs. Improved STEM literacy. Greater achievement for inner-city children. Happiness for all children. So why are liberals spending billions of dollars working against those goals? In Race to the Bottom, Luke Rosiak uncovers the shocking reason why American education is failing: Powerful special interest groups are using our kids as guinea pigs in vast ideological experiments. These groups’ initiatives aren’t focused on making children smarter—but on implementing a radical agenda, no matter the effect on academic standards. Nonprofits pump billions into initiatives meant to redress racial inequities. Rather than fixing the problem, districts with a big gap between white and black test scores hire consultants who claim the tests are meaningless because they are “racist.” These consultants’ judgments allow school districts to ignore their own failures—ultimately hurting minority students and perpetuating racism. That is just one example. Drawing on his years in investigative journalism, Rosiak did a deep dive into school files, financial records, and parents’ stories. What he found is that nonprofit influence has crept into the educational bureaucracy all over America. Corrupt school boards and quack diversity consultants abound. Teachers drawing government pay claim it’s unsafe to return to in-person school, but “double dip” teaching in-person private classes. And amid all this focus on money and equity, academic standards are crumbling, which hurts American kids in ways we’ll be suffering for decades. Race to the Bottom is the first comprehensive exposé of the way radical ideology and self-serving administrators are destroying academic quality in America’s K-12 schools. Rigorous and deeply-researched, this is essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of our kids.

Obama's Race
Obama's Race

Author: Michael Tesler

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-11-15

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0226793834

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Barack Obama’s presidential victory naturally led people to believe that the United States might finally be moving into a post-racial era. Obama’s Race—and its eye-opening account of the role played by race in the election—paints a dramatically different picture. The authors argue that the 2008 election was more polarized by racial attitudes than any other presidential election on record—and perhaps more significantly, that there were two sides to this racialization: resentful opposition to and racially liberal support for Obama. As Obama’s campaign was given a boost in the primaries from racial liberals that extended well beyond that usually offered to ideologically similar white candidates, Hillary Clinton lost much of her longstanding support and instead became the preferred candidate of Democratic racial conservatives. Time and again, voters’ racial predispositions trumped their ideological preferences as John McCain—seldom described as conservative in matters of race—became the darling of racial conservatives from both parties. Hard-hitting and sure to be controversial, Obama’s Race will be both praised and criticized—but certainly not ignored.

Race to the Bottom
Race to the Bottom

Author: Michael V. McGill

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2015-04-03

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0807756377

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How did the country that invented the moderm public school end up embracing policies that weaken it? What alternatives are there to current corporate reform policies? How can we give America's children an education that will truly prepare them and our nation for the challenges of tomorrow? In Race to the Bottom McGill successfully traces the emergence of corporate reform and describes how its tenets run counter to what he believes are the key elements of a high-quality education. McGill draws from a wealth of experience as a school superintendent for over 40 years, including his tenure in Scarsdale during the 2001 district-wide boycott of New York State standardized tests. Showing how strong leaders working with teachers and the community have been able to strengthen schools, the author offers a model of school reform that will prepare students for the 21st Century.

Class Warfare
Class Warfare

Author: Steven Brill

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-08-14

Total Pages: 477

ISBN-13: 145161201X

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This work looks at why many of America's schools are failing and relates how parents, activists, and education reformers are joining together to fix a system that works for adults but consistently fails the children it is meant to educate. In it the author takes a look at the adults who are fighting over America's failure to educate its children, and points the way to reversing that failure.

The Mismeasure of Education
The Mismeasure of Education

Author: Jim Horn

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2013-07-01

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 1623963931

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With new student assessments and teacher evaluation schemes in the planning or early implementation phases, this book takes a step back to examine the ideological and historical grounding, potential benefits, scholarly evidence, and ethical basis for the new generation of test based accountability measures. After providing the political and cultural contexts for the rise of the testing accountability movement in the 1960s that culminated almost forty years later in No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, this book then moves on to provide a policy history and social policy analysis of value-added testing in Tennessee that is framed around questions of power relations, winners, and losers. In examining the issues and exercise of power that are sustained in the long-standing policy of standardized testing in schools, this work provides a big picture perspective on assessment practices over time in the U. S.; by examining the rise of value-added assessment in Tennessee, a fine-grained and contemporary case is provided within that larger context. The last half of the book provides a detailed survey of the research based critiques of value-added methodology, while detailing an aggressive marketing campaign to make value-added modeling (VAM) a central component of reform strategies following NCLB. The last chapter and epilogue place the continuation of test-based accountability practices within the context of an emerging pushback against privatization, high stakes testing, and other education reforms. This book will be useful to a wide audience, including teachers, parents, school leaders, policymakers, researchers, and students of educational history, policy, and politics.

Testing Wars in the Public Schools
Testing Wars in the Public Schools

Author: William J. Reese

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-03-11

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 0674075692

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Written tests to evaluate students were a radical and controversial innovation when American educators began adopting them in the 1800s. Testing quickly became a key factor in the political battles during this period that gave birth to America's modern public school system. William J. Reese offers a richly detailed history of an educational revolution that has so far been only partially told. Single-classroom schools were the norm throughout the United States at the turn of the nineteenth century. Pupils demonstrated their knowledge by rote recitation of lessons and were often assessed according to criteria of behavior and discipline having little to do with academics. Convinced of the inadequacy of this system, the reformer Horace Mann and allies on the Boston School Committee crafted America's first major written exam and administered it as a surprise in local schools in 1845. The embarrassingly poor results became front-page news and led to the first serious consideration of tests as a useful pedagogic tool and objective measure of student achievement. A generation after Mann's experiment, testing had become widespread. Despite critics' ongoing claims that exams narrowed the curriculum, ruined children's health, and turned teachers into automatons, once tests took root in American schools their legitimacy was never seriously challenged. Testing Wars in the Public Schools puts contemporary battles over scholastic standards and benchmarks into perspective by showcasing the historic successes and limitations of the pencil-and-paper exam.

Bush-Obama School Reform
Bush-Obama School Reform

Author: Frederick M. Hess

Publisher: Educational Innovations

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781682532171

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Introduction / Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane -- Testing and accountability: what have we learned and where do we go? / Deven Carlson -- The limits of policy for school turnaround / Ashley Jochim -- Incentives and inducements: the feds fight federalism / Patrick McGuinn -- Federal efforts to improve teacher quality / Matthew A. Kraft -- The Bush-Obama agenda for education research and innovation: major investment, mixed returns / Robert Pianta and Tara Hofkens -- Why standards produce weak reform / Tom Loveless -- Federal support for charter schooling: a presidential priority / Anna J. Egalite -- Challenging, building, and changing capacity in state education agencies / Sara E. Dahill-Brown -- Sound and fury: education and civil rights in the Bush and Obama administrations / Joshua Dunn -- Conclusion / Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane

Race to the Top
Race to the Top

Author: Michael Anthony Steele

Publisher: Capstone

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 73

ISBN-13: 1669031829

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As the gamer squad tackles a racing challenge, thirteen-year-old Hanna, a theater star feeling lost after moving to a bigger school, grapples with her new school and the possibility of not being cast in the upcoming play.