The second report from "A Study of High Schools," based on interviews with teachers, students and parents.

In this update to his landmark publication, William J. Reese offers a comprehensive examination of the trends, theories, and practices that have shaped America’s public schools over the last two centuries. Reese approaches this subject along two main lines of inquiry—education as a means for reforming society and ongoing reform within the schools themselves. He explores the roots of contemporary educational policies and places modern battles over curriculum, pedagogy, race relations, and academic standards in historical perspective. A thoroughly revised epilogue outlines the significant challenges to public school education within the last five years. Reese analyzes the shortcomings of “No Child Left Behind” and the continued disjuncture between actual school performance and the expectations of government officials. He discusses the intrusive role of corporations, economic models for enticing better teacher performance, the continued impact of conservatism, and the growth of home schooling and charter schools. Informed by a breadth of historical scholarship and based squarely on primary sources, this volume remains the standard text for future teachers and scholars of education.

Two eighth-grade loners decide to take up residence in a department store. Little do they know that theirs is not an original idea.

Forget everything you think you know about school reform. Cutting through the cant, sentiment, and obfuscation characterizing the current school reform debate, Frederick M. Hess lacerates the conventional "status quo" reform efforts and exposes the naivete underlying reform strategies that rest on solutions like class size reduction, small schools, and enhanced professional development. He explains that real improvement requires a bracing regime of common sense reforms that create a culture of competence by rewarding excellence, punishing failure, and giving educators the freedom and flexibility to do their work. He documents the scope of the challenges we face and then provides concrete recommendations for addressing them through reforms to promote accountability, competition, a 21st-century workforce, effective school leadership, and sensible reinvention. Engagingly written and drawing on real world experiences and examples, Common Sense School Reform will generate debate and help set the agenda for the future.

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2013! Educating Activist Allies offers a fresh take on critical education studies through an analysis of social justice pedagogy in schools serving communities privileged by race and class. By documenting the practices of socially committed teachers at an urban private academy and a suburban public school, Katy Swalwell helps educators and educational theorists better understand the challenges and opportunities inherent in this work. She also examines how students responded to their teachers’ efforts in ways that both undermined and realized the goals of social justice pedagogy. This analysis serves as the foundation for the development of a curricular framework helping students to foster an "Activist Ally" identity: the skills, knowledge, and dispositions necessary to negotiate privilege in ways that promote justice. Educating Activist Allies provides a powerful introduction to the ways in which social justice curricula can and should be enacted in communities of privilege.

The second report from "A Study of High Schools," based on interviews with teachers, students and parents.

This book is organized around CBUPO, the basic psychological needs of all students: competence, ,belonging, usefulness, potency, and optimism. When teachers and schools focus on meeting these needs, the rate of at-riskness is drastically reduced. This book presents practical strategies and tips to help teachers and administrators help all students become successful learners. The revised edition offers new material on using classroom assessment, complying with standards and high stakes testing, an updated approach to evaluating At-Risk Prevention programs, and alternative strategies for meeting the motivational needs of at-risk youth, from developmental constructivism to mastery learning.

Part memoir and part study of modern life, Shopping Mall examines the modern mythology of the shopping mall and the place it holds in our shared cultural history.

A chilling thriller that forms part of the Bone Chillers series of stories for children.