education / educational policy & reform / general

Examines the philosophies and practices of the American education system, arguing that low student test scores result from a mistaken emphasis at the elementary level on context-free reading skills and strategies rather than content-rich curricula that give students knowledge about the world.

"By a brilliant young constitutional scholar at the University of Chicago--who clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for Judge Merrick B. Garland and on the Supreme Court of the United States for Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Breyer, and who also happens to be an elegant stylist--a powerfully alarming book concerned to vindicate the constitutional rights of public school students, so often trampled upon by the Supreme Court in recent decades Supreme Court decisions involving the constitutional rights of students in the nation's public schools have consistently been most controversial. From racial segregation to unauthorized immigration, from economic inequality to public prayer and homeschooling: these are but a few of the many divisive issues that the Supreme Court has addressed vis-a-vis elementary and secondary education. The Schoolhouse Gate gives a fresh, lucid, and provocative account of the historic legal battles waged over education. It argues that since the 1970s, the Supreme Court through its decisions has transformed public schools into Constitution-free zones. Students deriving lessons about citizenship from the Court's decisions over the last four decades would conclude that the following actions taken by school officials pass constitutional muster: inflicting severe corporeal punishment on students without any procedural protections; searching students and their possessions, without probable cause, in bids to uncover violations of school rules; engaging in random drug testing of students who are not suspected of any wrongdoing; and suppressing student speech solely for the viewpoint that it espouses. Taking their cue from such decisions, lower courts have validated a wide array of constitutionally dubious actions, including: repressive student dress codes; misguided "zero tolerance" disciplinary policies; degrading student strip searches; and harsh restrictions on off-campus speech in the internet age. Justin Driver dramatically and keenly surveys this battlefield of constitutional meaning and warns that impoverished views of constitutional protections will only further rend our social fabric"--.

"--- argues that under free market capitalism, life paths prescribed by class but framed as parental choices--publor or private? Gifted & Talented, general or special education?--segregate American children from birth throuh adolescence, and into adulthood, as never before. In age of austerity, an elite class of corporate education reformers has found new ways to transfer the costs f raising children to families. Examining three New York City schools, Class War show how education has been transformed into a competitive "hunger games" for the resources and social connections required for economic success"-- Provided by publisher.

Michael Brick is one of those writers who never leaves your side, and what pleasurable company he provides.In reading this collection of his newspaper and magazine stories from Brooklyn, Houston, and beyond, picture the man. Tall, and lanky, and so proud to be Texan, wearing a brown vest and cowboy boots, his narrow reporter?s notebook in his back pocket slapping at his flat ass, as if urging him onward because these blank pages needed filling.Brick?s words breathe life into his subjects. Here is Willy, the world-weary lady bartender at a salt-air bar, and all you need to know is that Her daddy was William, who wanted a son.? Here is Minerva Ramirez, aging with Down syndrome, her hair tied in a floral bow, pretty like Tinkerbell.? And Danny Wimprine, a talented quarterback too small for the N.F.L., whose gorgeous touchdown throws for the New Orleans VooDoo arena football team makes women swoon. And Peter Carmine Gaetano Napolitano, the bartender at the Melody Lanes bowling alley in south Brooklyn, wearing suspenders and a red-trimmed cummerbund, an insurance policy for pants.?Brick brings his characters to life, and brings them along with him to the party. Make room for the Coney Island mermaids, wearing green-sequined bras and knocking back Buds. Another round, please.Proceeds from the book will benefit the Brick family.

"Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Christie, and Cory Booker were ready to reform our failing schools. They got an education. When Mark Zuckerberg announced in front of a cheering Oprah audience his $100 million pledge to transform the Newark Schools -- and to solve the education crisis in every city in America -- it looked like a huge win for then-mayor Cory Booker and governor Chris Christie. But their plans soon ran into a constituency not so easily moved -- Newark's key education players, fiercely protective of their billion-dollar-per-annum system. It's a prize that, for generations, has enriched seemingly everyone, except Newark's students. Expert journalist Dale Russakoff delivers a story of high ideals and hubris, good intentions and greed, celebrity and street smarts -- as reformers face off against entrenched unions, skeptical parents, and bewildered students. The growth of charters forces the hand of Newark's superintendent Cami Anderson, who closes, consolidates, or redesigns more than a third of the city's schools -- a scenario on the horizon for many urban districts across America. Most moving are Russakoff's portraits from inside the district's schools, of home-grown principals and teachers, long stuck in a hopeless system -- and often the only real hope for the children of Newark. The Prize is a portrait of a titanic struggle over the future of education for the poorest kids, and a cautionary tale for those who care about the shape of America's schools. "--.

"A brilliant young scholar's history of 175 years of teaching in America shows that teachers have always borne the brunt of shifting, often impossible expectations. In other nations, public schools are one thread in a quilt that includes free universal child care, health care, and job training. Here, schools are the whole cloth. Today we look around the world at countries like Finland and South Korea, whose students consistently outscore Americans on standardized tests, and wonder what we are doing wrong. Dana Goldstein first asks the often-forgotten question: "How did we get here?" She argues that we must take the historical perspective, understanding the political and cultural baggage that is tied to teaching, if we have any hope of positive change. In her lively, character-driven history of public teaching, Goldstein guides us through American education's many passages, including the feminization of teaching in the 1800s and the fateful growth of unions, and shows that the battles fought over nearly two centuries echo the very dilemmas we cope with today. Goldstein shows that recent innovations like Teach for America, merit pay, and teacher evaluation via student testing are actually as old as public schools themselves. Goldstein argues that long-festering ambivalence about teachers--are they civil servants or academic professionals?--and unrealistic expectations that the schools alone should compensate for poverty's ills have driven the most ambitious people from becoming teachers and sticking with it. In America's past, and in local innovations that promote the professionalization of the teaching corps, Goldstein finds answers to an age-old problem"--.