harvard educational publishing group us (510 results)

Paperback. Condition: New. What's the scarcest resource in schools? Almost any educator will answer, "Time." The lack of time for colleagues to work together is one of the biggest barriers to improving teaching and learning. All too often, educators also say that the biggest waste of time ismeetings. People in schools attend dozens, if not hundreds, of meetings a year. How can that time be used wisely?This book, by two editors of Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning,attempts to bring about a fundamental shift in how educators think about the meetings they attend. The authors make the case that these gatherings are potentially the most important venue where adult and organizational learning can take place in schools, and that making more effective use of this time is an important key to increasing student achievement.In Meeting Wise, the authors show why planning meetings is a high-leverage strategy for changing how people work together in the service of school improvement. To this end, they have created a meeting-planning "checklist" to develop a common language for discussing and improving the quality of meetings. In addition, they provide guidelines for readers on "wise facilitating" and "wise participating," and also include "top tips" and "common dilemmas."Simple, succinct, and practical, Meeting Wise is designed to be read and applied at every level of the educational enterprise, from district leadership meetings and professional developmentsessions to teacher-team meetings and even teachers' meetings with parents and students.

Paperback. Condition: New. Counseling expert V. Scott H. Solberg introduces a new paradigm and framework for career development focused on teaching skills that all students need to set long-term goals and experience post-secondary success. Based on nearly a decade of research and technical assistance in schools, the book shows how educators can leverage the use of individual learning plans (ILPs) to help students identify their interests and create their own career pathways using resources inside and outside of school. In Making School Relevant with Individualized Learning Plans, Solberg argues that the most effective career development is delivered using a multiyear whole-school approach led by caring advisors and other mentors, combined with the use of readily available online tools and resources. Core chapters provide examples of specific activities and resources that advisors and others can draw on for helping students develop three critical skill sets: self-exploration, career exploration, and career planning and self-management, which are needed to succeed in the world of work. This book will help educators and youth development leaders understand how ILPs prepare their youth to become college- and career-ready and thereby transition from high school with the competencies and drive necessary to pursue their career and life goals.

Paperback. Condition: New. Drawing on narratives from hundreds of Black, Latinx, and Indigenous individuals, Ebony Omotola McGee examines the experiences of underrepresented racially minoritized students and faculty members who have succeeded in STEM. Based on this extensive research, McGee advocates for structural and institutional changes to address racial discrimination, stereotyping, and hostile environments in an effort to make the field more inclusive.Black, Brown, Bruised reveals the challenges that underrepresented racially minoritized students confront in order to succeed in these exclusive, usually all-White, academic and professional realms. The book provides searing accounts of racism inscribed on campus, in the lab, and on the job, and portrays learning and work environments as arenas rife with racial stereotyping, conscious and unconscious bias, and micro-aggressions. As a result, many students experience the effects of a racial battle fatigue-physical and mental exhaustion borne of their hostile learning and work environments-leading them to abandon STEM fields entirely. McGee offers policies and practices that must be implemented to ensure that STEM education and employment become more inclusive including internships, mentoring opportunities, and curricular offerings. Such structural changes are imperative if we are to reverse the negative effects of racialized STEM and unlock the potential of all students to drive technological innovation and power the economy.

Paperback. Condition: New. Science in the City examines how language and culture matter for effective science teaching. Author Bryan A. Brown argues that, given the realities of our multilingual and multicultural society, teachers must truly understand how issues of culture intersect with the fundamental principles of learning. This book links an exploration of contemporary research on urban science teaching to a more generative instructional approach in which students develop mastery by discussing science in culturally meaningful ways. The book starts with a trenchant analysis of the 'black tax,' a double standard at work in science language and classrooms that forces students of color to appropriate and express their science knowledge solely in ways that accord with the dominant culture and knowledge regime. Because we are in an interactive, multimedia world, the author also posits the necessity of applying what is known about best practices in science teaching to best practices in technology. The book then turns to instruction, illustrating how science education can flourish if it is connected to students' backgrounds, identities, language, and culture. In this empowered-and inclusive-form of science classroom, the role of narrative is key: educators use stories and anecdotes to induct students into the realm of scientific thinking; introduce big ideas in easy, familiar terms; and prioritize explanation over mastery of symbolic systems. The result is a classroom that showcases how the use of more familiar, culturally relevant modes of communication can pave the way for improved science learning.

Paperback. Condition: New. In this landmark volume, Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane lay out a meticulously researched case showing how - in a time of spiraling inequality - strategically targeted interventions and supports can help schools significantly improve the life chances of low-income children.The authors offer a brilliant synthesis of recent research on inequality and its effects on families, children, and schools. They describe the interplay of social and economic factors that has made it increasingly hard for schools to counteract the effects of inequality and that has created a widening wedge between low- and high-income students.Restoring Opportunity provides detailed portraits of proven initiatives that are transforming the lives of low-income children from prekindergarten through high school. All of these programmes are research-tested and have demonstrated sustained effectiveness over time and at significant scale. Together, they offer a powerful vision of what good instruction in effective schools can look like. The authors conclude by outlining the elements of a new agenda for education reform.Restoring Opportunity is a crowning contribution from these two leading economists in the field of education and a passionate call to action on behalf of the young people on whom our nation's future depends.

Paperback. Condition: New. Restorative justice represents "a paradigm shift in the way Americans conceptualize and administer punishment," says author Maisha T. Winn, from a focus on crime to a focus on harm, including the needs of both those who were harmed and those who caused it. Her book, Justice on Both Sides, provides an urgently needed, comprehensive account of the value of restorative justice and how contemporary schools can implement effective practices to address inequalities associated with race, class, and gender.Winn, a restorative justice practitioner and scholar, draws on her extensive experience as a coach to school leaders and teachers to show how indispensable restorative justice is in understanding and addressing the educational needs of students, particularly disadvantaged youth. Justice on Both Sides makes a major contribution by demonstrating how this actually works in schools and how it can be integrated into a range of educational settings. It also emphasizes how language and labeling must be addressed in any fruitful restorative effort. Ultimately, Winn makes the case for restorative justice as a crucial answer, at least in part, to the unequal practices and opportunities in American schools.

Paperback. Condition: New. Informed by years of research and on-the-ground reporting, Schools That Succeed is Karin Chenoweth's most inspiring and compelling book yet-an essential read for educators who seek to break the stubborn connection between academic achievement and socioeconomic status.Chenoweth draws on her decade-long journey into neighborhood schools where low-income students and students of color are learning at unexpectedly high levels to reveal a key ingredient to their success: in one way or another, their leaders have confronted the traditional ways that schools are organized and adopted new systems, all focused on improvement. In vivid profiles of once-embattled schools, Chenoweth shows how school leaders doggedly and patiently reorganized internal systems in order to prioritize teaching and learning, resulting in improved outcomes that in many cases exceeded statewide averages.From how they use time to how they use money, schools that succeed combine a deep belief in the capacity of their students to achieve with deliberate systems focused on student needs. As a result, they create vibrant places "where teachers want to teach and students want to learn.".

Paperback. Condition: New. Innovative, well-designed school library programs can be critical resources for helping students meet high standards of college and career readiness. In School Libraries and Student Learning, Rebecca J. Morris shows how school leaders can make the most of their school libraries to support ambitious student learning. She offers practical strategies for collaboration between school leaders, teachers, and librarians to meet schoolwide objectives in literacy, assessment, student engagement, and inquiry-based learning.Topics include:establishing "makerspaces" and "learning commons" to support student-centered learningdeveloping a schoolwide focus on literacy across multiple formats and devicesredesigning lesson plans that foster inquiry and critical thinking across classrooms and grade levelssupporting collaboration between teachers and librarians in instruction and assessmentusing the library to strengthen ties between school, family, and community.This accessible guide will help librarians and school leaders work together to bring student learning to a new level.

Paperback. Condition: New. What does it look like when a school uses data wisely? Data Wise in Action, a new companion and sequel to our bestselling Data Wise, tells the stories of eight very different schools following the Data Wise process of using assessment results to improve teaching and learning. Data Wise in Action highlights the leadership challenges schools face in each phase of the eight-step Data Wise cycle and illustrates how staff members use creativity and collaboration to overcome those challenges. Data Wise in Action builds on the work of leading faculty and graduate students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who joined with exemplary practitioners in 2005 to produce Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning. Since its publication, Data Wise has been read by thousands of school leaders, many of whom have shared the book with colleagues and staff. The success of the original book has generated a new demand among school leaders: to hear real stories from schools that are implementing the Data Wise process. Data Wise in Action answers that need. It offers both inspiration and practical guidance for school leaders.

Paperback. Condition: New. Schooling for Critical Consciousness addresses how schools can help youth of color resist the negative effects of racial injustice and challenge its root causes. Scott Seider and Daren Graves draw on a four-year longitudinal study examining how five different mission-driven urban high schools foster critical consciousness among their students. The book presents vivid portraits of the schools as they implement various programs and practices, and traces the impact of these approaches on the students themselves. The authors make a unique contribution to the existing scholarship on critical consciousness and culturally responsive teaching by comparing the roles of different schooling models in fostering various dimensions of critical consciousness and identifying specific programming and practices that contributed to this work. Through their research with more than 300 hundred students of color, Seider and Graves aim to help educators strengthen their capacity to support young people like these in learning to analyze, navigate, and challenge racial injustice.Schooling for Critical Consciousness provides school leaders and educators with specific programming and practices they can incorporate into their own school contexts to support the critical consciousness development of the youth they serve.

Paperback. Condition: New. Investigating Disciplinary Literacy provides practical, research-based guidance for teachers seeking to strengthen students' reading, writing, and communication skills in subjects from the humanities to the sciences. The authors present a framework for conducting professional development cycles based on disciplinary literacy-related learning and district-based research projects they have conducted over the past five years.The book outlines the steps in the cycle and identifies four "working habits" essential to initiating and sustaining disciplinary literacy projects: balancing content with process; creating a culture of adaptation and invention; attending equally to intermediate and subject-specific literacy skills; and positioning teachers and leaders as learners within projects. The book, written in a reader-friendly voice, shows how educators can collaboratively explore and implement disciplinary literacy-related practices in context-specific, meaningful ways.

Paperback. Condition: New. The Future of University Credentials offers a thorough and urgently needed overview of the burgeoning world of university degrees and credentials. At a time of heightened attention to how universities and colleges are preparing young people for the working world, questions about the meaning and value of university credentials have become especially prominent. Sean Gallagher guides us through this fast-changing terrain, providing much-needed context, details, and insights.The book casts a wide net, focusing on traditional higher education degrees and on the myriad certificates and other postsecondary awards that universities and other institutions now issue. He describes the entire ecosystem of credentials, including universities and colleges, employers, government agencies, policy makers and influencers - and, not least, the students whose futures are profoundly affected by these certifications. And he looks intently at where university credentials might be headed, as educational institutions seek to best serve students and employers in a rapidly changing world.The result is an unprecedented, comprehensive look at the current credentialing landscape in higher education-as well as at the future challenges and opportunities for this vital field.

Paperback. Condition: New. Transforming Teacher Education offers an intimate, reflective account of the development of the renowned Team One teacher education program at Michigan State University. Over a ten-year period, Team One established a first-rate reputation as a beacon of progressive teacher education. In this book, the creators of Team One describe their ongoing efforts to nurture and sustain a teacher education program that could serve as a learning community for students, faculty, and administrators alike. The book weaves together diverse voices to provide a detailed portrait of the ongoing transformation of teachers and students as they learn together. At a time when traditional teacher education is coming under fire, this book presents a powerful vision of what teacher education could and should be and offers an impassioned rationale for engaging in the intellectually demanding work of professional teacher education.

Paperback. Condition: New. In Natural Allies, Soo Hong offers a paradigm shift in how we think about family engagement with schools. Hong challenges the conventional depiction of parents and teachers as 'natural enemies,' and shows how, through teachers' initiative and commitment, they can become natural allies instead. Based on a three-year ethnographic study, the book features the experiences and motivations of five urban school teachers who have successfully created meaningful, productive relationships and partnerships with students' families. In Natural Allies, the teachers' personal narratives are juxtaposed with rich descriptions of their interactions with families and children. The book explores how the dimensions of race, class, culture, and family history shape the interactions between teachers and families, particularly in schools where teacher-parent dynamics may be fraught with distrust or misunderstanding. The book demonstrates how commitment to families and community can become a central part of educators' development as professionals. In addition, the research provides new insight and seeks to merge the study of family engagement with the field of culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies. Offered with optimism and urgency, Natural Allies addresses an area in which many educators feel ill equipped and unprepared. Readers will emerge from a reading of the book with new ideas on family engagement that are grounded in an analysis of the deep contours of the parent-teacher relationship.

Paperback. Condition: New. In Fulfilling the Promise, Mandy Savitz-Romer shows what is possible when schools and districts draw upon the talents of their counselors and put them at the center of students' school experience.Savitz-Romer offers a strategic approach to school counseling that enables educational leaders to draw on existing staff to create supportive contexts and programs for students. In this model of the "academic home," counselors serve as the first point of contact for student support, connecting and coordinatingservices much like primary care physicians coordinate patient care in medical settings. They serve as the hub of a network of supports to prevent students from falling between the cracks.By highlighting promising practices in schools, districts, and states, and the efforts of individual school counselors and leaders, Fulfilling the Promise presents a conceptualization of school counseling that is relevant for all educators, as well as policy makers and funders. In order to create the conditions for school counselors to be most effective, however, systemic barriers must be addressed. This book brings together research, practical experience, and policy recommendations to envision a focused and practical role for school counselors in the twentyfirst century.

Paperback. Condition: New. Walk into any school in America and you will see adults who care deeply about their students and are doing the best they can every day to help students learn. But you will also see a high degree of variability among classrooms-much higher than in most other industrialized countries. Today we are asking schools to do something they have never done before-educate all students to high levels-yet we don't know how to do that in every classroom for every child. This book is intended to help education leaders and practitioners develop a shared understanding of what high-quality instruction looks like and what schools and districts need to do to support it. Inspired by the medical-rounds model used by physicians, the authors have pioneered a new form of professional learning known as instructional rounds networks. Through this process, educators develop a shared practice of observing, discussing, and analyzing learning and teaching.

Paperback. Condition: New. Over the past 20 years, alternative certification for teachers has emerged as a major avenue of teacher preparation. The proliferation of new pathways has spurred heated debate over how best to recruit, prepare, and support qualified teachers. Drawing on the work of leading scholars, Alternative Routes to Teaching provides a thorough and dispassionate review of the research evidence on alternative certification. It takes readers beyond the simple dichotomies that have characterized the debate over alternative certification, encourages them to look carefully at the trade-offs implicit in any route into teaching, and suggests ways to "marry" the proven strengths of both traditional and alternative approaches.

Paperback. Condition: New. A Reason to Read is the culminating work of the ArtsLiteracy Project, an ambitious and wide-ranging collaborative that aims to promote literacy through rich and sustained instruction in the arts. At the heart of the book is the "Performance Cycle," a flexible framework for curriculum and lesson planning that can be adapted to all content areas and age groups. Each of the book's main chapters delineates and explores a particular component of the cycle. A practical, readable, and inspiring book, A Reason to Read will be of immeasurable help to school teachers, education leaders, and all who have a stake in promoting literacy and the arts in today's schools.

Paperback. Condition: New. How to Create the Conditions for Learning shows how the conditions for continuously improving instruction can be created at every level-from the classroom to the school to the central office.Ann Jaquith presents a framework for understanding and building instructional capacity, based on her original research in schools and districts and ideas drawn from the literature on instructional resourcing. She describes four types of resources-knowledge, technology, relationships, and structures-and discusses the contextual conditions that allow these resources to be identified, taken up, and put to effective use. Through case studies of schools and districts engaged in the sometimes messy work of developing the capacity to improve instruction, Jaquith shows ways that school and district leaders can identify and deploy underutilized resources and create organizational routines that support the ongoing development of instructional capacity.How To Create the Conditions for Learning represents an important contribution to the effort to stimulate, support, and sustain excellent teaching and inspired learning in our schools.

Paperback. Condition: New. The inspiration for this timely book is the pressing need for fresh ideas and innovations in U.S. higher education. At the heart of the volume is the realisation that higher education must evolve in fundamental ways if it is to respond to changing professional, economic, and technological circumstances, and if it is to successfully reach and prepare a vast population of students-traditional and non-traditional alike-for success in the coming decades.This collection of provocative articles by leading scholars, writers, innovators, and university administrators examines the current higher education environment and its chronic resistance to change; the rise of for-profit universities; the potential future role of community colleges in a significantly revised higher education realm; and the emergence of online learning as a means to reshape teaching and learning and to reach new consumers of higher education.Combining trenchant critiques of current conditions with thought-provoking analyses of possible reforms and new directions, Reinventing Higher Education is an ambitious exploration of possible future directions for revitalised American colleges and universities.

Paperback. Condition: New. Teacher Diversity and Student Success makes a powerful case for diversifying the teaching force as an important policy lever for closing achievement gaps and moving schools closer to equity goals. Written by three leading scholars, the book provides nuanced solutions on how to diversify the teaching force, increase student exposures to same-race teachers, and improve teacher training for a culturally diverse student body. They argue that teacher diversity should be seen as one element of teacher quality, and policies focused on improving teacher quality should take race explicitly into consideration. The authors also address the historic and contemporary factors that have kept people of color out of teaching and highlight emerging research showing the significant, long-lasting impact of same-race teacher exposures, particularly for Black and Latino students. This timely book is a call to action for building teacher diversity to ensure student success.

Paperback. Condition: New. Paul LeBlanc has re-imagined higher education, with a focus on the most fundamental of functions: student learning. In Students First, he advocates for an entire higher education ecosystem in which students have the flexibility to gain, assess, and certify their knowledge on their own terms and timelines. In a perceptive analysis, LeBlanc provides a clear-eyed view of how and why higher education is failing to reach and serve a great many potential students. He then deftly explores how reform can address systemic inequities, improve college affordability, and broaden accessibility. Through case studies, he highlights alternative delivery models such as online, distance, and just-in-time learning, and envisions a learning environment that values competencies rather than credit hours. LeBlanc describes how these innovations and others will allow colleges and universities to help close the skills gap and respond to a rapidly evolving, technology-driven job market. Although a college education remains one of the great drivers of socioeconomic mobility, today's higher education industry has built financial, logistical, and practical barriers that keep out the very students who are most in need of opportunity. Students First makes a persuasive case that realigning US educational priorities will enable larger populations of graduates to enjoy return on investment in the form of good pay, meaningful work, and a stable future. As the book emphasizes, such change is imperative, for in better serving its students, higher education will better serve society.

Paperback. Condition: New. A step-by-step guidebook for teachers on how to build a classroom community that empowers students through critical reflection, inquiry, and action to drive school transformation   In Transformative Student Voice for Teachers, Dane Stickney, Ben Kirshner, Carlos P. Hipolito-Delgado, and Shelley Zion offer clear frameworks that support student agency and center the voices of young people in the process of school improvement and transformation. They illustrate how the frameworks, Critical Civic Inquiry and Transformative Student Voice, give educators the tools to adopt a youth-centered approach to learning that runs counter to the top-down leadership and behaviorist and adultist practices common to the US K-12 educational system.   This practical companion to Transformative Student Voice guides teachers and other adults to cultivate self-awareness and recognize unearned power, form authentic student-educator partnerships, facilitate critical inquiry in student groups, and sustain this work. Each chapter highlights a specific, real-world application of these approaches in a classroom community that organizes student learning around cycles of critical reflection, civic inquiry, and action. Each also identifies challenges, cautions against common pitfalls, and provides key questions and takeaways to aid implementation. These actionable guidelines help set the course for adults and young people to develop critical consciousness and capacity for engagement in sociopolitical activism, transforming both themselves and the settings where they live and work.

Paperback. Condition: New. A deep-dive investigation of education privatization that reveals voucher programs as the faulty products of decades of work by wealthy patrons and influential conservatives   In The Privateers, Josh Cowen lays bare the surprising history of tax-funded school choice programs in the United States and warns of the dangers of education privatization. A former evaluator of state and local school voucher programs, Cowen demonstrates how, as such programs have expanded in the United States, so too has the evidence-informed case against them.    This thought-provoking work traces the origins of voucher-based education reform to mid-twentieth-century fears over school desegregation. It shows how, in the intervening decades, a cabal of billionaire conservatives supporting a host of special political interests-including economic libertarianism, religious choice, and parental rights-have converged around the issue of education freedom in an ongoing culture war. Through deliberate policymaking, legislation, and litigation, Cowen reveals, an insular advocacy network has enacted a flawed system for education finance driven largely by dogma.   Far from realizing the purported goal of educational equity, privatization is failing students and exacerbating income inequality, Cowen finds. He cites multiple research studies that conclude that voucher programs return poorer academic outcomes, including lower test scores on state exams, especially among students who are at greater academic risk because of their race, their religion, their gender identity, or their family's income. Continued advancement of these policies, Cowen argues, is an assault on public education as a defining American institution.

Paperback. Condition: New. How can an understanding of adolescent development inform strategies and practices for supporting first-generation college goers? In Ready, Willing, and Able, Mandy Savitz-Romer and Suzanne Bouffard focus on the developmental tasks and competencies that young people need to develop in order to plan for and succeed in higher education. These include identity development, articulating aspirations and expectations, forming and maintaining strong peer and adult relationships, motivation and goal-setting, and self-regulatory skills, such as planning. The authors challenge the predominant approach of giving young people information and leaving it to them to figure out how to apply it. They show how well-intended college-access efforts can miss the mark-for instance, by focusing on students who already see themselves as college material, rather than working to help all students develop a "college-going identity." In addition, most college-access programs and practices focus almost exclusively on providing academic preparation and financial support. In Ready, Willing, and Able, Savitz-Romer and Bouffard call for a new approach: one that emphasizes the key developmental tasks and processes of adolescence and integrates them into existing college-access practices in meaningful ways. Rather than treating young people as passive recipients of services, they argue, adults can engage them as active agents in the construction of their own futures.

Paperback. Condition: New. In Districts That Succeed, long-time education writer Karin Chenoweth turns her attention from effective schools to effective districts. Leveraging new, cutting-edge national research on district performance as well as in-depth reporting, Chenoweth profiles five districts that have successfully broken the correlation between race, poverty, and achievement. Focusing on high performing or rapidly improving districts that serve children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, the book explores the common elements that have led to the districts' successes, including leadership, processes, and systems. Districts That Succeed reveals that helping more students achieve is not a matter of adopting a program or practice. Rather, it requires developing a district-wide culture where all adults feel responsible for the academic well-being of students and adopt systems and processes that support that culture. Chenoweth explores how districts, from urban Chicago, Illinois to suburban Seaford, Delaware, have organized themselves to look at data to guide improvement. Her research highlights the essential role of districts in closing achievement gaps and illustrates how successful outliers can serve as resources for other districts. With important lessons for district leaders and policy makers alike, Chenoweth offers the hard-won wisdom of educators who understand the power of schools to, as one superintendent says, "change the path of poverty.".

Paperback. Condition: New. An evidence-based plan of action to achieve educational justice for K-12 public school students from families whose income is 50% or more below the US poverty threshold.In School Communities of Strength, Peter W. Cookson, Jr., lays out a blueprint for providing equitable educational opportunities for students from all socioeconomic strata, and particularly for the five million American children who live with the extreme material hardship known as deep poverty. This work issues an urgent call to action for K-12 schools to put in place the policies, practices, and programs that enable economically vulnerable students to thrive. Drawing from up-to-date findings in the science of learning and development as well as analyses of schools that serve students in poverty, Cookson pinpoints success strategies that can help schools improve their poverty responsiveness. He shows how these strategies, including whole-child teaching and learning, asset-based approaches, and relationship-centered school culture, can help educators create the culturally responsive, inclusive environments that provide a base of safety from which students can better engage with their education. Offering astute analysis, Cookson notes that school communities of strength require adequate funding and also meaningful collaboration among families, neighborhood partners, and educators. This book amplifies the idea that communities working together can drive transformative change, and it brings into focus three primary policy initiatives-to fully invest in whole students, to fully invest in schools, and to fully invest in eliminating the causes of deep poverty-that can advance educational equity.

Paperback. Condition: New. In this practical guide, Thomas Fowler-Finn identifies the key ideas explored in each phase of instructional rounds and discusses how facilitators can skilfully guide a network of educators through the rounds process while gradually transferring agency to the network.He shows how to scaffold participant learning and model effective teaching practices, and explores potential facilitator responses to issues that arise at each step. The book includes new and tested protocols to advance the work of all facilitators, whether novice or experienced.Written by a leading instructional rounds consultant who worked closely with the Harvard team that pioneered instructional rounds, Leading Instructional Rounds in Education: A Facilitator's Guide provides tools, suggestions, and reflections to ensure that facilitators-and the networks they lead-achieve maximum results.

Paperback. Condition: New. In their introduction to Beyond Tracking, Jeannie Oakes and Marisa Saunders offer a sobering assessment of American high schools: "Evidence abounds that high schools simply don't work very well: witness strikingly high dropout rates, large percentages of graduates unprepared to succeed in college or career, education gaps that jeopardize African American and Latino students' life chances, and widespread student disengagement. This pervasive dysfunction exacts a high price from students and from the nation's social, economic, and civic welfare." Beyond Tracking responds to this dilemma by delineating and promoting an innovative and well-defined notion of multiple pathways. The book's authors clearly distinguish their use of the term "multiple pathways" from any updated version of the tracking system that marked so many American high schools during the past century, and from career and technical education programs. Instead, Oakes and Saunders propose a system of multiple pathways that will "provide both the academic and real-world foundations that students need for advanced learning, training, and preparation for responsible civic participation." All multiple pathways schools will have four main components: a college-preparatory core; a professional/technical core; field-based learning and realistic workplace simulations; and additional support services to meet the particular needs of students and communities. "In this conception of multiple pathways, students and their families choose from among a variety of options, all of which lead students to the same destination: preparation to succeed in both college and career, not one or the other." In its detailed and innovative examination of multiple pathways, Beyond Tracking makes a crucial contribution to current discussions about high school reform and the educational challenges of the 21st century.

Paperback. Condition: New. Second Edition. In the updated edition of Smarter Budgets, Smarter Schools, Nathan Levenson proposes fresh strategies for more efficient, equitable resource allocation within school districts.Budgets, according to Levenson, can be a surprisingly powerful lever for improved student achievement outcomes and equity. Readers of this revised edition will find practical advice for funding equity initiatives and social-emotional services, among other student needs. Levenson also discusses how to accommodate common, necessary school expenses and district improvement measures such as capital purchases, personnel costs, and campus renovations within tight funding models. The key is creativity: Levenson invites readers to shift their mindsets and embrace innovative ideas for using limited resources strategically.An indispensable guide, Smarter Budgets, Smarter Schools delivers proven, successful practices for school leaders-superintendents, central office leaders, building principals, and school board members-who hope to make smarter, better informed financial decisions and stretch declining district budgets. It outlines budget management tactics for working around financial constraints brought on by shrinking tax revenues, rising health care and pension costs, and increased special education needs. The book also addresses how to manage declining or increasing enrollment numbers.Throughout this useful and timely work, Levenson provides real-world examples, critical worksheets, and actionable suggestions to help decision-makers apply these concepts and realize a greater academic return on their investments.