During the COVID-19 pandemic, parents were able to observe their children in online classes. They were surprised by classroom discussions and assignments related to gender, race, ethnicity, and religion along with the policies that were guiding curricula, tests, technology, athletics, discipline, safety, transportation, funding, and numerous other aspects of schools. Parents began giving their advice to their school boards, but when they were ignored, they disrupted meetings, wrote editorials, created blogs, staged rallies, and lobbied state officials. They were hoping to attract media attention and acquire political power and were stunned by their success. TheParent-School Board Feuds: Essential Steps by Parents to Improve Schools recounts parent-school board feuding about controversial classroom topics such as gender and race, their disagreements about school policies, including those affecting tests, technology, athletics, and discipline, and the impact that parents had during the pandemic and continue to have today.

Most Americans had no idea what Common Core was in 2013, according to polls. But it had been creeping into schools nationwide over the previous three years, and children were feeling its effects. They cried over math homework so mystifying their parents could not help them, even in elementary school. They read motley assortments of “informational text” instead of classic literature. They dreaded the high-stakes tests, in unfamiliar formats, that were increasingly controlling their classrooms. How did this latest and most sweeping “reform” of American education come in mostly under the radar? Joy Pullmann started tugging on a thread of reports from worried parents and frustrated teachers, and it led to a big tangle of history and politics, intrigue and arrogance. She unwound it to discover how a cabal of private foundation honchos and unelected public officials cooked up a set of rules for what American children must learn in core K–12 classes, and how the Obama administration pressured states to adopt them. Thus a federalized education scheme took root, despite legal prohibitions against federal involvement in curriculum. Common Core and its testing regime were touted as “an absolute game-changer in public education,” yet the evidence so far suggests that kids are actually learning less under it. Why, then, was such a costly and disruptive agenda imposed on the nation’s schools? Who benefits? And how can citizens regain local self-governance in education, so their children’s minds will be fed a more nourishing intellectual diet and be protected from the experiments of emboldened bureaucrats? The Education Invasion offers answers and remedies.

Johnny, the eldest daughter of Mexican farm workers, is expelled from high school, but with the help of a Latina psychologist and a civil rights attorney, she fights the discriminatory treatment and returns determined to finish school.

As Americans, we often take our many freedoms for granted. It is easy to forget the difficulties many of our ancestors faced when fighting for the rights we now enjoy. Because the United States is a "nation of laws and not of men," these people were able to challenge unfair laws in hope of a better future. Fights for Rights explains our everyday rights of free speech and religion, the rights of the accused, and how our Constitution guarantees these rights for all people, including women and African Americans.

Meet Mamie Tape, 8-year-old Chinese American changemaker who fought for the right to go to school in San Francisco in the 1880s. Follow Mamie's brave steps and discover the poignant history of her California Supreme Court case Tape v. Hurley. Mamie’s mom always reminded her a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So when Mamie wanted to go to school, even though Chinese children weren’t allowed, she took her first step and showed up anyway. When she was turned away at the schoolhouse door, she and her parents took another step: they sued the San Francisco school board…and won! Their case Tape v. Hurley made its way up to the California Supreme Court, which ruled that children of Chinese heritage had the right to a free public school education. But even then, Mamie’s fight wasn’t over. Mamie Tape Fights to go to School is the story of one young changemaker’s brave steps on the long journey to end school segregation in California. It began with a single step.

This the autobiographical work of Howard Evans (1839–1915) who was a British Radical and Nonconformist journalist. The book paints a vivid picture of conditions in the 19th century and how courageous reformers like John Stuart Mill, himself and his associate W. Randal Cremer stood for human rights and the beginnings of the Labour and Peace Movements. Evans wrote in 1878, "I believe firmly that in politics as well as religion God has his own elect chosen out from the rest of the world to be the pioneers of progress". Together with Cremer he formed the Inter Parliamentary Union and the International Arbitration League and laid the foundations for the International Court of Justice in the passionate search for an alternative to war as a solution for international disputes.

Recipient of the 2019 Alex Award​​ “Mike Muñoz Is a Holden Caulfield for a New Millennium--a '10th-generation peasant with a Mexican last name, raised by a single mom on an Indian reservation' . . . Evison, as in his previous four novels, has a light touch and humorously guides the reader, this time through the minefield that is working-class America.” --The New York Times Book Review For Mike Muñoz, life has been a whole lot of waiting for something to happen. Not too many years out of high school and still doing menial work--and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew--he’s smart enough to know that he’s got to be the one to shake things up if he’s ever going to change his life. But how? He’s not qualified for much of anything. He has no particular talents, although he is stellar at handling a lawn mower and wielding clipping shears. But now that career seems to be behind him. So what’s next for Mike Muñoz? In this funny, biting, touching, and ultimately inspiring novel, bestselling author Jonathan Evison takes the reader into the heart and mind of a young man determined to achieve the American dream of happiness and prosperity--who just so happens to find himself along the way.

School boards spend almost $500 billion in taxpayer-provided funds, they employ more than 6 million people, offering pensions and lifetime health benefits that have helped build the obligation that has put state governments in fiscal peril. This book lifts the veil of obscurity from school boards and makes readers think about the issues.