検索キーワード： 政策・改革

Theodore Sizer, the founder of The Coalition of Essential Schools, was a passionate advocate for the American school system. In this, his last audiobook, he offers a vision of what a future secondary education might look like.

From one of the largest organizations of public school principals, this book exposes many misguided school-reform initiatives that are negatively impacting students and educators across the country, and recommends ways to make them more effective. Veteran educator Gerald Tirozzi addresses all the hottest school reform trends including: charter schools, teacher merit pay, Race to the Top, Common Core State Standards, and more.

Hailed by Oprah as a "warrior woman for our times", reviled by teachers unions as the enemy, Michelle Rhee, outgoing chancellor of Washington DC, public schools, has become the controversial face of school reform. She has appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, and is currently featured as a hero in the documentary Waiting for Superman. This is the story of her journey from good-girl daughter of Korean immigrants to tough-minded political game-changer.

In the years after A Nation at Risk, conservatives' ideas to reform America's lagging education system gained much traction. Key items like school choice and rigorous academic standards drew bipartisan support and were put into practice across the country. Today, these gains are in retreat, ceding ground to progressive nostrums that do little to boost the skills and knowledge of young people. Far from being discouraged, however, conservatives should seize the moment to refresh their vision of quality K-12 education for today's America.

Higher education has seen better days. Harsh budget cuts, the precarious nature of employment in college teaching, and political hostility to the entire enterprise of education have made for an increasingly fraught landscape. Radical Hope is an ambitious response to this state of affairs, at once political and practical - the work of an activist, teacher, and public intellectual grappling with some of the most pressing topics at the intersection of higher education and social justice.

Breaking Barriers shows how to redesign high schools so that all students can move on to college and successful careers. In a negation of the American dream, a child's zip code is currently a far better predictor of success than hard work, intelligence, or resilience. This book tells the story of a school model that focuses on equity and works to prove that all young people can achieve academic excellence given the right support. P-TECH combines public high schools and community colleges in partnership with employers, providing both opportunity and support for all students.

At a time of bitter national polarization, there is a critical need for leaders who can help us better communicate with one another. In A Search for Common Ground, Rick Hess and Pedro Noguera, who have often fallen on opposing sides of the ideological aisle over the past couple of decades, candidly talk through their differences on some of the toughest issues in K-12 education today - from school choice to testing to diversity to privatization.

Not so long ago, conservative intellectuals such as William F. Buckley Jr. believed universities were worth fighting for. Today, conservatives seem more inclined to burn them down. In Let's Be Reasonable, conservative political theorist and professor Jonathan Marks finds in liberal education an antidote to this despair, arguing that the true purpose of college is to encourage people to be reasonable. Drawing on the ideas of John Locke and other thinkers, Marks presents the case for why, now more than ever, conservatives must not give up on higher education.

Why is it so hard to get students to pay attention? Conventional wisdom blames iPhones, insisting that access to technology has ruined students' ability to focus. The logical response is to ban electronics in class. But acclaimed educator James M. Lang argues that this solution obscures a deeper problem: how we teach is often at odds with how students learn. Classrooms are designed to force students into long periods of intense focus, but emerging science reveals that the brain is wired for distraction. We learn best when able to actively seek and synthesize new information.

Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved.

Jamie Merisotis, author of the award-winning 2016 book America Needs Talent, argues that people will coexist with smart machines by learning, earning, and serving others over their lifetimes. But Merisotis asserts large-scale change is necessary to develop and hone the knowledge, skills, and abilities that render us uniquely human. These qualities include compassion, critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and interpersonal communication.

Most Americans today see school choice as their inalienable right. In The Choice We Face, scholar Jon Hale reveals what most fail to see: school choice is grounded in a complex history of race, exclusion, and inequality. Through evaluating historic and contemporary education policies, Hale demonstrates how reframing the way we see school choice represents an opportunity to evolve from complicity to action.

Using campus social justice movements as an entry point, Leigh Patel shows how the struggles in higher education often directly challenged the tension between narratives of education as a pathway to improvement and the structural reality of settler colonialism that creates and protects wealth for a select few.

When racist curriculum "goes viral" on social media, it is typically dismissed as an isolated incident from a "bad" teacher. Educator Bree Picower, however, holds that racist curriculum isn't an anomaly. It's a systemic problem that reflects how Whiteness is embedded and reproduced in education. In Reading, Writing, and Racism, Picower argues that White teachers must reframe their understanding about race in order to advance racial justice and that this must begin in teacher education programs.

Journalist Jo Napolitano delves into the landmark case in which the School District of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was sued for refusing to admit older, non-English speaking refugees and sending them to a high-discipline alternative school. In a legal battle that mirrors that of the Little Rock Nine and Brown v. Board of Education, 6 brave refugee students fought alongside the ACLU and Education Law Center to demand equal access.

A memoir and a call to action, this intimate look at America’s long-standing struggle to adequately educate vulnerable children offers valuable insights for effecting change in families, communities, and nationwide.

Michael Phillips would never become anything. At least, that’s what he was told. It seemed like everyone was waiting for him to just fall through the cracks. After losing his father, suffering a life-altering car accident, and losing his college scholarship, Michael turned to selling drugs to make ends meet. But when his house was raided, he was arrested and thrown into a living nightmare.

The cost of college makes for frightening headlines and politics. The outstanding balance of student loans is more than $1.5 trillion nationally, while tuitions continue to rise. And on the heels of a pandemic that nearly dismantled the traditional “college experience”, we have to wonder: Is college really worth it? From a financial perspective, says economist Beth Akers, the answer is yes. It’s true that college is expensive, but once we see higher education for what it is - an investment in future opportunities, job security, and earnings - a different picture emerges

From best-selling author Paul Tough, an indelible and explosive book on the glaring injustices of higher education, including unfair admissions tests, entrenched racial barriers, and crushing student debt. Now updated and expanded for the pandemic era. Combining vivid and powerful personal stories with deep, authoritative reporting, Paul Tough explains how we got into this mess and explores the innovative reforms that might get us out.

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.