Student Voice in School Reform

Student Voice in School Reform PDF Author: Dana L. Mitra
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791478947
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
High schools continue to be places that isolate, alienate, and disengage students. But what would happen if students were viewed as part of the solution in schools rather than part of the problem? This book examines the emergence of "student voice" at one high school in the San Francisco Bay area where educators went straight to the source and asked the students to help. Struggling, like many high schools, with how to improve student outcomes, educators at Whitman High School decided to invite students to participate in the reform process. Dana L. Mitra describes the evolution of student voice at Whitman, showing that the students enthusiastically created partnerships with teachers and administrators, engaged in meaningful discussion about why so many failed or dropped out, and partnered with teachers and principals to improve learning for themselves and their peers. In documenting the difference that student voice made, this book helps expand ideas of distributed leadership, professional learning communities, and collaboration. The book also contributes much needed research on what student voice initiatives look like in practice and provides powerful evidence of ways in which young people can increase their sense of agency and their sense of belonging in school.

Student Voice in School Reform

Student Voice in School Reform PDF Author: Dana L. Mitra
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791478947
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Get Book Here

Book Description
High schools continue to be places that isolate, alienate, and disengage students. But what would happen if students were viewed as part of the solution in schools rather than part of the problem? This book examines the emergence of "student voice" at one high school in the San Francisco Bay area where educators went straight to the source and asked the students to help. Struggling, like many high schools, with how to improve student outcomes, educators at Whitman High School decided to invite students to participate in the reform process. Dana L. Mitra describes the evolution of student voice at Whitman, showing that the students enthusiastically created partnerships with teachers and administrators, engaged in meaningful discussion about why so many failed or dropped out, and partnered with teachers and principals to improve learning for themselves and their peers. In documenting the difference that student voice made, this book helps expand ideas of distributed leadership, professional learning communities, and collaboration. The book also contributes much needed research on what student voice initiatives look like in practice and provides powerful evidence of ways in which young people can increase their sense of agency and their sense of belonging in school.

International Handbook of Student Experience in Elementary and Secondary School

International Handbook of Student Experience in Elementary and Secondary School PDF Author: D. Thiessen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402033672
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 910

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Book Description
This handbook brings together in a single volume the groundbreaking work of scholars who have conducted studies of student experiences of school in Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, England, Ghana, Ireland, Pakistan, and the United States. Drawing extensively on students’ interpretations of their experiences in school as expressed in their own words, chapter authors offer insight into how students conceptualize and approach school. The book examines how students understand and address the ongoing social opportunities for and challenges in working with other students and teachers, and the multiple ways in which students shape and contribute to school improvement.

Student Voice

Student Voice PDF Author: Russell J. Quaglia
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 1483379779
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Meaningful school reform starts with your most powerful partner—your students! When you take time to listen, you’ll find that students’ aspirations can drive your school toward exciting new goals—and when students know they’re being heard, they engage meaningfully in their own academic success. Using examples drawn from student surveys, focus groups, observations, and interviews, this groundbreaking book presents a blueprint for a successful partnership between educators and students. You’ll discover how to: Ask the right questions—and understand how to build from the answers Engage students in decision-making and improvement-related processes Implement the Aspirations Framework to guide students toward their full potential

The Power of Voice in Schools

The Power of Voice in Schools PDF Author: Russ Quaglia
Publisher: ASCD
ISBN: 1416629378
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
For nearly four decades, Russ Quaglia has been laying the groundwork to inform, reform, and transform schools through student voice. That deep commitment is reflected in this inspirational book. Quaglia and his coauthors at the Quaglia Institute for School Voice & Aspirations deftly synthesize the thoughts and feelings of hundreds of thousands of stakeholders and offer a vision for schools where everyone's voice matters. They posit that students, teachers, administrators, and parents must work and learn together in ways that promote deep understanding and creativity. Making this collaborative effort successful, however, requires widespread recognition that all stakeholders have something to teach, and they all have a role to play in moving the entire school forward. We must abandon the "us versus them" fallacy in education; there is only "us." To that end, The Power of Voice in Schools offers a way forward that can be used in any school and * Addresses the importance of everyone's voice in the school community. * Articulates the lessons learned from listening to these voices over the past decade. * Suggests concrete, practical strategies for combined teams of students, teachers, parents, and administrators to make a difference together. This book reflects the dream of a true partnership in listening, learning, and leading together. When the potential of voice is fully realized, schools will look and feel different. Cooperation will replace competition and conflict, collaboration will replace isolation, and confidence will replace insecurity. Most important, the entire school community will work in partnership with one another for the well-being of students and teachers.

Elevating Student Voice

Elevating Student Voice PDF Author: Nelson Beaudoin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317923936
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
This book demonstrates what schools can do to enhance student participation and engagement. It shows educators how to: - create opportunities for students to practice democracy and civic responsibility. - develop a "school for each kid" - get students to care Examples include - Community service - Peer Helpers - Peer Mediators - Student-directed programs and events - Student feedback to teachers - Student-led conferences - Students on interviewing committees - Students on the School Board - Student publications - Student speakers . . . and more Also highlighted in this book are the exciting and enriching activities of First Amendment Schools.

Listening to Urban Kids

Listening to Urban Kids PDF Author: Bruce L. Wilson
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791491277
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
According to the many student voices in this book, urban middle school students want teachers who "stay on them" to complete their work, maintain orderly classrooms, give them the extra help they need to succeed, explain their work clearly, draw on a variety of teaching strategies, and make their work relevant and meaningful. This book, rich in detail, brings these inner-city students' perspectives to life and issues a compelling call for urban school reform that actually touches students' daily lives.

Subtractive Schooling

Subtractive Schooling PDF Author: Angela Valenzuela
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438422628
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Winner of the 2000 Outstanding Book Award presented by the American Educational Research Association Winner of the 2001 American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Award Honorable Mention, 2000 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Awards Subtractive Schooling provides a framework for understanding the patterns of immigrant achievement and U.S.-born underachievement frequently noted in the literature and observed by the author in her ethnographic account of regular-track youth attending a comprehensive, virtually all-Mexican, inner-city high school in Houston. Valenzuela argues that schools subtract resources from youth in two major ways: firstly by dismissing their definition of education and secondly, through assimilationist policies and practices that minimize their culture and language. A key consequence is the erosion of students' social capital evident in the absence of academically oriented networks among acculturated, U.S.-born youth.

Addicted to Reform

Addicted to Reform PDF Author: John Merrow
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620972433
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The prize-winning PBS correspondent's provocative antidote to America's misguided approaches to K-12 school reform During an illustrious four-decade career at NPR and PBS, John Merrow—winner of the George Polk Award, the Peabody Award, and the McGraw Prize—reported from every state in the union, as well as from dozens of countries, on everything from the rise of district-wide cheating scandals and the corporate greed driving an ADD epidemic to teacher-training controversies and America's obsession with standardized testing. Along the way, he taught in a high school, at a historically black college, and at a federal penitentiary. Now, the revered education correspondent of PBS NewsHour distills his best thinking on education into a twelve-step approach to fixing a K–12 system that Merrow describes as being "addicted to reform" but unwilling to address the real issue: American public schools are ill-equipped to prepare young people for the challenges of the twenty-first century. This insightful book looks at how to turn digital natives into digital citizens and why it should be harder to become a teacher but easier to be one. Merrow offers smart, essential chapters—including "Measure What Matters," and "Embrace Teachers"—that reflect his countless hours spent covering classrooms as well as corridors of power. His signature candid style of reportage comes to life as he shares lively anecdotes, schoolyard tales, and memories that are at once instructive and endearing. Addicted to Reform is written with the kind of passionate concern that could come only from a lifetime devoted to the people and places that constitute the foundation of our nation. It is a "big book" that forms an astute and urgent blueprint for providing a quality education to every American child.

Saving the School

Saving the School PDF Author: Michael Brick
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101575352
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Inside the race to save a great American high school, where making the numbers is only the beginning Being principal was never her dream. Anabel Garza, the young widow of a young cop, got by teaching English to immigrant children, taking college classes at night and raising her son. And Reagan High was no dream assignment. Once famous for its state football championships, educational achievements and award-winning design, the school was a shadow of its former self. “Identified for improvement,” said the federal government. “Academically unacceptable,” said the state. Promising students were fleeing. Test scores were plunging. The education commissioner set a deadline of one year, threatening to close the school for good. But when Anabel took the job - cruising the mall for dropouts, tailoring lessons to the tests, firing a few lazy teachers and supporting the rest – she started something no one expected. As the numbers rose, she set out to re-create the high school she remembered, with plays and dances, yearbooks and clubs, crowded bleachers and teachers who brought books alive. And soon she was not alone. There was Derrick Davis, a star player on the basketball team in the early 1990s, coaching the Raiders toward a chance at the playoffs. There was Candice Kaiser, a science teacher who had left hard partying behind for Christ, drilling her students on chemistry while she drove them to games, tutoring sessions, Bible studies and sometimes even doctors’ appointments. There were JaQuarius Daniels, Ashley Brown and 900 other kids trying to pass the exams, escape the streets and restore the pride of a neighborhood, all while still growing up. Across the country, public schools face the threat of extinction in the numerically ordained churn of the accountability movement. Now, for the first time, we can tally the human cost of rankings and scores. In this powerful rejoinder to the prevailing winds of American education policy, Michael Brick takes us inside the high-pressure world of a school on the brink. Compelling, character-driven narrative journalism, Saving the School pays overdue tribute to the great American high school, and to the people inside.

Rebuilding Our Schools from the Bottom Up

Rebuilding Our Schools from the Bottom Up PDF Author: Fiona Carnie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315451875
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
The aim of this book is to explore how teachers, students and parents can be given more of a say in the education system – in how schools are organised, and in what and how children learn. The book does not promote a specific view of education, but considers the means by which educational purposes and approaches can be conceived, agreed and enacted democratically – a precursor to a flourishing democratic society. Rebuilding Our Schools from the Bottom Up has been written in response to significant changes which have taken place in the education system over the past 30 years. In England at least, these changes have resulted in an increasingly centralised system in which the voices of those who teach, those who learn, and those whose children go to school have been marginalised. The book covers four main areas: Teacher voice: listening to the professionals Student voice: involving students as active participants in their education Parent voice: building a genuine home–school partnership School community voice: developing a shared vision With inspiring examples from around the UK and overseas and a range of resources that can be used by senior leaders, teachers and parents, the book aims to encourage and support transformative change so that schools can meet the needs of the communities they exist to serve.