Contemporary public policy assumes that the achievement gap between black and white students could be closed if only schools would do a better job. According to Richard Rothstein, "Closing the gaps between lower-class and middle-class children requires social and economic reform as well as school improvement. Unfortunately, the trend is to shift most of the burden to schools, as if they alone can eradicate poverty and inequality." In this book, Rothstein points the way toward social and economic reforms that would give all children a more equal chance to succeed in school. This book features: a summary of numerous studies linking school achievement to health care quality, nutrition, childrearing styles, housing stability, parental economic security, and more ; aA look at erroneous and misleading data that underlie commonplace claims that some schools "beat the demographic odds and therefore any school can close the achievement gap if only it adopted proper practices." ; and an analysis of how the over-emphasis of standardized tests in federal law obscures the true achievement gap and makes narrowing it more difficult.

The last decade has seen a burgeoning of interest in the twin fields of school effectiveness and school improvement by politicians, policy makers and practitioners. For some, the drive has been to raise standards and increase accountability through inspection and assessment measures, believing that the incentive of accountability and market competition will lead to improvement. Alternatively, reform and restructuring have led many people in schools to create their own agenda and ask, ‘How do we know that what we are doing makes a positive difference to our pupils?’ and, ‘What can we do to provide pupils with the best possible education?’ This paper explores the two paradigms that underpin notions of school effectiveness and school improvement. We start with their definitions and aims. Key factors of effectiveness and improvement are examined and fundamental issues discussed. We conclude with a description of attempts to link the two areas of work.

Going to College tells the powerful story of how high school students make choices about postsecondary education. Drawing on their unprecedented nine-year study of high school students, the authors explore how students and their parents negotiate these important decisions. Family background, finances, education, information—all influence students' plans after high school and the career paths they pursue, as do the more subtle messages delivered by parents and counselors which shape adolescents' self-expectations. For high school guidance counselors, college admissions counselors, parents and teachers, and public policy makers, this book is a valuable resource that explains the decision-making process and helps adults to help students make appropriate choices. The authors identify predisposition, search, and choice as the three stages in the student decision-making process. Predisposition refers to the plans students develop for education or work after they graduate from high school. The search stage involves students discovering and evaluating a variety of colleges and universities. In the choice stage, students choose a school to attend from among a list of institutions that are being seriously considered. Understanding exactly how students move through the predisposition, search, and choice stages of the college decision-making process can help students and parents prepare themselves for this process and consider a wider array of options. For education professionals, understanding this process can lead to new initiatives to guide students and families effectively—by providing better incentives for college savings, for example, or devising more effective early information programs about postsecondary education. Going to College is the first book to seriously study over an extended period the decisions that have a pervasive and lasting impact on individual careers, livelihoods, and lifestyles. The authors conclude with important recommendations for improving academic support, exploring various financial options, providing early encouragement—in other words, for recognizing the factors that influence students' decisions, and knowing when to pay attention to them.

This second volume of PISA 2012 results defines and measures equity in education and analyses how equity in education has evolved across countries between PISA 2003 and 2012.

In this original and major new work, David Blustein places working at the same level of attention for social and behavioral scientists and psychotherapists as other major life concerns, such as intimate relationships, physical and mental health, and socio-economic inequities. He also provides readers with an expanded conceptual framework within which to think about working in human development and human experience. As a result, this creative new synthesis enriches the discourse on working across the broad spectrum of psychology's concerns and agendas, and especially for those readers in career development, counseling, and policy-related fields. This textbook is ideal for use in graduate courses on counseling and work or vocational counseling.

An NPR Favorite Book of the Year “Breaks new ground on social and educational questions of great import.” —Washington Post “An essential work, humane and candid, that challenges and expands our understanding of the lives of contemporary college students.” —Paul Tough, author of Helping Children Succeed “Eye-opening...Brings home the pain and reality of on-campus poverty and puts the blame squarely on elite institutions.” —Washington Post “Jack’s investigation redirects attention from the matter of access to the matter of inclusion...His book challenges universities to support the diversity they indulge in advertising.” —New Yorker The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors—and their coffers—to support a more diverse student body. But is it enough just to admit these students? In this bracing exposé, Anthony Jack shows that many students’ struggles continue long after they’ve settled in their dorms. Admission, they quickly learn, is not the same as acceptance. This powerfully argued book documents how university policies and campus culture can exacerbate preexisting inequalities and reveals why some students are harder hit than others.

Drawing on current scholarship, Education and Society takes students on a journey through the many roles that education plays in contemporary societies. Addressing students’ own experience of education before expanding to larger sociological conversations, Education and Society helps readers understand and engage with such topics as peer groups, gender and identity, social class, the racialization of achievement, the treatment of immigrant children, special education, school choice, accountability, discipline, global perspectives, and schooling as a social institution. The book prompts students to evaluate how schools organize our society and how society organizes our schools. Moving from students to schooling to social forces, Education and Society provides a lively and engaging introduction to theory and research and will serve as a cornerstone for courses such as sociology of education, foundations of education, critical issues in education, and school and society.

A “bracing and well-argued” study of America’s college debt crisis—“necessary reading for anyone concerned about the fate of American higher education” (Kirkus). College is far too expensive for many people today, and the confusing mix of federal, state, institutional, and private financial aid leaves countless students without the resources they need to pay for it. In Paying the Price, education scholar Sara Goldrick-Rab reveals the devastating effect of these shortfalls. Goldrick-Rab examines a study of 3,000 students who used the support of federal aid and Pell Grants to enroll in public colleges and universities in Wisconsin in 2008. Half the students in the study left college without a degree, while less than 20 percent finished within five years. The cause of their problems, time and again, was lack of money. Unable to afford tuition, books, and living expenses, they worked too many hours at outside jobs, dropped classes, took time off to save money, and even went without adequate food or housing. In many heartbreaking cases, they simply left school—not with a degree, but with crippling debt. Goldrick-Rab combines that data with devastating stories of six individual students, whose struggles make clear the human and financial costs of our convoluted financial aid policies. In the final section of the book, Goldrick-Rab offers a range of possible solutions, from technical improvements to the financial aid application process, to a bold, public sector–focused “first degree free” program. "Honestly one of the most exciting books I've read, because [Goldrick-Rab has] solutions. It's a manual that I'd recommend to anyone out there, if you're a parent, if you're a teacher, if you're a student."—Trevor Noah, The Daily Show