Public Education

Public Education PDF Author: David C. Berliner
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807766097
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
"Twenty-eight eminent essayists remind our nations parents, educators, school board members and politicians that our democracy is in jeopardy and that our nation's system of free universal public education is also under attack. If that attack succeeds, American democracy itself would be further imperiled. That is because American democracy rests on a belief that the power of our government comes from the people, and the diffusion of knowledge and the enlightenment of the people has been a cornerstone of our democracy since the founding of our republic. America's public schools, therefore, have a special mandate"--

Public Education

Public Education PDF Author: David C. Berliner
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807766097
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Twenty-eight eminent essayists remind our nations parents, educators, school board members and politicians that our democracy is in jeopardy and that our nation's system of free universal public education is also under attack. If that attack succeeds, American democracy itself would be further imperiled. That is because American democracy rests on a belief that the power of our government comes from the people, and the diffusion of knowledge and the enlightenment of the people has been a cornerstone of our democracy since the founding of our republic. America's public schools, therefore, have a special mandate"--

The Public School Advantage

The Public School Advantage PDF Author: Christopher A. Lubienski
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022608907X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Nearly the whole of America’s partisan politics centers on a single question: Can markets solve our social problems? And for years this question has played out ferociously in the debates about how we should educate our children. From the growth of vouchers and charter schools to the implementation of No Child Left Behind, policy makers have increasingly turned to market-based models to help improve our schools, believing that private institutions—because they are competitively driven—are better than public ones. With The Public School Advantage, Christopher A. and Sarah Theule Lubienski offer powerful evidence to undercut this belief, showing that public schools in fact outperform private ones. For decades research showing that students at private schools perform better than students at public ones has been used to promote the benefits of the private sector in education, including vouchers and charter schools—but much of these data are now nearly half a century old. Drawing on two recent, large-scale, and nationally representative databases, the Lubienskis show that any benefit seen in private school performance now is more than explained by demographics. Private schools have higher scores not because they are better institutions but because their students largely come from more privileged backgrounds that offer greater educational support. After correcting for demographics, the Lubienskis go on to show that gains in student achievement at public schools are at least as great and often greater than those at private ones. Even more surprising, they show that the very mechanism that market-based reformers champion—autonomy—may be the crucial factor that prevents private schools from performing better. Alternatively, those practices that these reformers castigate, such as teacher certification and professional reforms of curriculum and instruction, turn out to have a significant effect on school improvement. Despite our politics, we all agree on the fundamental fact: education deserves our utmost care. The Public School Advantage offers exactly that. By examining schools within the diversity of populations in which they actually operate, it provides not ideologies but facts. And the facts say it clearly: education is better off when provided for the public by the public.

Testing Wars in the Public Schools

Testing Wars in the Public Schools PDF Author: William J. Reese
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674075692
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
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.

The Assault on Public Education

The Assault on Public Education PDF Author: William Watkins
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807771430
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
In this timely interdisciplinary volume, William Watkins has brought together leading scholars and activists to address some of the most urgent issues facing public education. What is underneath and behind the language of choice, efficiency, and improvement in current neoliberal discourse? How will urban and poor populations be affected? Will privatization lead to increased stratification in our schools? How can public education not only be saved but re-imagined? In accessible language, renowned contributors explore and critique corporate school reform to both inform and serve as an organizing tool for teachers, parents, students, and citizens committed to genuine public education. Book Features: A comprehensive critique of how corporate power is disrupting universal public education. An illumination of how corporate school reform threatens unions, racial progress, and democracy. An illustration of how private wealth forges public policy. A case study of the public school system in New Orleans. Contributors: Pauline Lipman • Kennneth Saltman • Alfie Kohn • Jack Gerson • Malila N. Robinson • Catherine A. Lugg • William H. Watkins • Ann G. Winfield • Kristen L. Buras William H. Watkins is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of The White Architects of Black Education. “As The Assault on Public Education makes so very clear. . . we are witnessing the growth of a destructive set of policies in education and the larger society. This book provides us with a set of articulate analyses of what the future will likely hold if we do not engage in the hard and committed labor of countering these dangerous tendencies today.” —From the Foreword by Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin–Madison “The Assault on Public Education is a powerful assemblage of scholars, practitioners, and activists who are willing to stand up to the entrenched interests arrayed against public education as we know it. This is a must read for thinking citizen scholars.” —Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin-Madison “Today is a pivotal moment for America and its schools. Teachers and others who envision schools that enhance democratic life will find critical theoretical and practical guidance in this book. Use it.” —Daniel Perlstein, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley “Watkins has produced an important and timely work—a much-needed corrective to the dumbing-down of educational policy discourse. The essays here offer a very real challenge to those who have confounded market-based policy with school reform and the well-being of children with the well-being of corporations.” —Charles Payne, University of Chicago

A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door

A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door PDF Author: Jack Schneider
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620978121
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
A trenchant analysis of how public education is being destroyed in overt and deceptive ways—and how to fight back In the “vigorous, well-informed” (Kirkus Reviews) A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, the co-hosts of the popular education podcast Have You Heard expose the potent network of conservative elected officials, advocacy groups, funders, and think tanks that are pushing a radical vision to do away with public education. “Cut[ing] through the rhetorical fog surrounding a host of free-market reforms and innovations” (Mike Rose), Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire lay bare the dogma of privatization and reveal how it fits into the current context of right-wing political movements. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door “goes above and beyond the typical explanations” (SchoolPolicy.org), giving readers an up-close look at the policies—school vouchers, the war on teachers’ unions, tax credit scholarships, virtual schools, and more—driving the movement’s agenda. Called “well-researched, carefully argued, and alarming” by Library Journal, this smart, essential book has already incited a public reckoning on behalf of the millions of families served by the American educational system—and many more who stand to suffer from its unmaking. “Just as with good sci-fi,” according to Jacobin, “the authors make a compelling case that, based on our current trajectory, a nightmare future is closer than we think.”

Charter School City

Charter School City PDF Author: Douglas N. Harris
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022669478X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
In the wake of the tragedy and destruction that came with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, public schools in New Orleans became part of an almost unthinkable experiment—eliminating the traditional public education system and completely replacing it with charter schools and school choice. Fifteen years later, the results have been remarkable, and the complex lessons learned should alter the way we think about American education. New Orleans became the first US city ever to adopt a school system based on the principles of markets and economics. When the state took over all of the city’s public schools, it turned them over to non-profit charter school managers accountable under performance-based contracts. Students were no longer obligated to attend a specific school based upon their address, allowing families to act like consumers and choose schools in any neighborhood. The teacher union contract, tenure, and certification rules were eliminated, giving schools autonomy and control to hire and fire as they pleased. In Charter School City, Douglas N. Harris provides an inside look at how and why these reform decisions were made and offers many surprising findings from one of the most extensive and rigorous evaluations of a district school reform ever conducted. Through close examination of the results, Harris finds that this unprecedented experiment was a noteworthy success on almost every measurable student outcome. But, as Harris shows, New Orleans was uniquely situated for these reforms to work well and that this market-based reform still required some specific and active roles for government. Letting free markets rule on their own without government involvement will not generate the kinds of changes their advocates suggest. Combining the evidence from New Orleans with that from other cities, Harris draws out the broader lessons of this unprecedented reform effort. At a time when charter school debates are more based on ideology than data, this book is a powerful, evidence-based, and in-depth look at how we can rethink the roles for governments, markets, and nonprofit organizations in education to ensure that America’s schools fulfill their potential for all students.

Hollywood Goes to High School

Hollywood Goes to High School PDF Author: Robert C. Bulman
Publisher: Macmillan Higher Education
ISBN: 1464187789
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
What do films such as The Breakfast Club, Dead Poets Society, and Freedom Writers have to teach us about American culture? Robert Bulmans Hollywood Goes to High School takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the high school film genre. Skillfully blending sociological theory and film analysis, Bulmans always accessible writing delightfully challenges the reader to think critically about American individualism and class inequality. Bulmans insightful sociological analysis of 177 new and classic high school films explores the complex ways in which Americans make sense of social class, education, gender and adolescence. Suitable for the beginning and advanced student, Hollywood Goes to High School is an essential piece of reading for a variety of courses in sociology, education, communication, anthropology, American studies, and film studies. For more from Robert Bulman read his analysis of McFarland USA starring Kevin Costner on Sociological Cinema here: http://www.thesociologicalcinema.com/blog/is-kevin-costners-mcfarland-usa-a-white-savior-film-well-yes-and-no.

William Frantz Public School

William Frantz Public School PDF Author: Connie L. Schaffer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781433183003
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Why should you care about what happened to William Frantz Public School? Yes, Ruby Bridges entered the iconic doors of William Frantz in 1960, but the building's unique role in New Orleans school desegregation is only one part of the important history of this school. Many additional and equally important stories have unfolded within its walls and the neighborhoods surrounding it. These stories matter. It matters that society has historically marginalized Black students and continues to do so. It matters that attempts to dismantle systemic racism in schools and other institutions still face strong resistance, and these issues continue to deeply divide the United States. It matters that the building remains standing as an indomitable symbol of the resiliency of public education despite decades of waning support, misguided accountability, and a city devasted by Hurricane Katrina. It matters that opportunism, under the guise of recovery, reshaped public education in New Orleans. William Frantz Public School: A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleansprovides more than an examination of education in one school and one city. It recounts a story that matters to anyone who cares about public education.

School, the Story of American Public Education

School, the Story of American Public Education PDF Author: Sarah Mondale
Publisher: Beacon Press (MA)
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This text is a companion volume to the four-part PBS documentary series of the same name. Essays by five historians of American education examine the history of the American public school system, from colonial times to the present. They consider a variety of issues faced by educators, parents, politicians and voters over the decades, including state versus local control, educating non-English speakers, specialized vocational tracks, approaches to school integration, the use of intelligence and standardized tests to assess academic potential, the challenges to providing the same quality of education to districts of varying socio-economic levels. Serious writing, but accessible to general readers interested in public education. c. Book News Inc.

Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses

Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses PDF Author: Eric A. Hanushek
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400830257
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Improving public schools through performance-based funding Spurred by court rulings requiring states to increase public-school funding, the United States now spends more per student on K-12 education than almost any other country. Yet American students still achieve less than their foreign counterparts, their performance has been flat for decades, millions of them are failing, and poor and minority students remain far behind their more advantaged peers. In this book, Eric Hanushek and Alfred Lindseth trace the history of reform efforts and conclude that the principal focus of both courts and legislatures on ever-increasing funding has done little to improve student achievement. Instead, Hanushek and Lindseth propose a new approach: a performance-based system that directly links funding to success in raising student achievement. This system would empower and motivate educators to make better, more cost-effective decisions about how to run their schools, ultimately leading to improved student performance. Hanushek and Lindseth have been important participants in the school funding debate for three decades. Here, they draw on their experience, as well as the best available research and data, to show why improving schools will require overhauling the way financing, incentives, and accountability work in public education.