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In the United States, a majority of students graduate below proficiency in all academic subjects. Parents of struggling students feel overwhelmed and confused about how to help their children simply survive school, let alone succeed. Various school reform efforts have been tried and all have failed. But all hope is not lost. A science exists that allows children to learn as individuals even though at school they are educated in groups. One that avoids senseless labels that sentence children to lifetimes of failure and mediocrity. Dr. Kimberly Berens and a team of scientists have spent the last 20 years perfecting a powerful system of instruction based on the learning, behavioral, and cognitive sciences that they call Fit Learning. This method of teaching has been proven to markedly improve how students understand and achieve, even for children who have been told they have learning disabilities or other disorders that interfere with their ability to learn. Blind Spots reveals the history of our broken education system and shows that by using this teaching system in the classroom, we can unlock the vast potential hidden within every child.

Since the onset of the UK's Research Excellence Framework in 2014, the environment for academic research has changed dramatically. Competitive Accountability in Academic Life goes behind the scenes of the'impact'policy agenda for higher education research and interrogates the effects of the new framework on academic research. Richard Watermeyer dissects how a new requirement to evidence the economic and societal impact of research has created a culture of intense competitiveness in UK universities. Through the eyes of both those responsible for the REF and those working under its gaze, the author locates the gross deceit spawned from a culture of competitive accountability in UK universities. This challenging book reconceptualises the public role of researchers, posing a new effort to progress the neoliberal malaise by signposting peripheral zones of participation - and non-participation - as viable intellectual alternatives to the university. Both groundbreaking and provocative, Watermeyer's book is critical reading for academics working not just in the UK, but also internationally. The author's crucial insight into modern higher education will also prove indispensable to higher education policy makers looking to innovate and refine education policy, and to university administrators overseeing performance management systems.

Winner of the Jackie Kirk AwardWinner of the AESA Critics'Choice Award“Blazes new trails in the study of the lives of girls, challenging all of us who care about justice and gender equity not only to create just and inclusive educational institutions but to be unapologetically feminist in doing so. Seamlessly merging research with the stories and voices of girls and those who educate them, this book reminds us that we should do better and inspires the belief that we can. It is the blueprint we've been waiting for.”—Brittney C. Cooper, author of Eloquent Rage“Nuamah makes a compelling and convincing case for the development of the type of school that can not only teach girls but also transform them…An essential read for all educators, policymakers, and parents invested in a better future.”—Joyce Banda, former President of the Republic of MalawiThis bold and necessary book points out a simple and overlooked truth: most schools never had girls in mind to begin with. That is why the world needs what Sally Nuamah calls “feminist schools,” deliberately designed to provide girls with achievement-oriented identities. And she shows how these schools would help all students, regardless of their gender.Educated women raise healthier families, build stronger communities, and generate economic opportunities for themselves and their children. Yet millions of disadvantaged girls never make it to school—and too many others drop out or fail. Upending decades of advice and billions of dollars in aid, Nuamah argues that this happens because so many challenges girls confront—from sexual abuse to unequal access to materials and opportunities—go unaddressed. But it isn't enough just to go to school. What you learn there has to prepare you for the world where you'll put that knowledge to work.A compelling and inspiring scholar who has founded a nonprofit to test her ideas, Nuamah reveals that developing resilience is not a gender-neutral undertaking. Preaching grit doesn't help girls; it actively harms them. Drawing on her deep immersion in classrooms in the United States, Ghana, and South Africa, Nuamah calls for a new approach: creating feminist schools that will actively teach girls how and when to challenge society's norms, and allow them to carve out their own paths to success.

“Igniting School Performance” begins with a simple question. What kind of school do you want for the children in your neighborhood, town, city or county? While the question is a good starting point, other questions such as: Are you willing to make a commitment so that all schools are high performing? How do you define high performing? and How might that goal be accomplished? are equally important.From the outset of this text, there is a focus on involving all stakeholders in the process of improving student achievement and providing an inclusive leadership approach that breaks the internal paralysis or ineptness which contributes to the ongoing status quo of underachievement in far too many schools.Stakeholders such as board members might declare that they are interested in schools that serve their community. Superintendents might focus on schools that create individuals with the desire to be life-long learners. Teachers might indicate that schools are a place where children learn. Parents may simply express that they want the schools to be good. Further qualifying each of these responses may also yield descriptions of schools that are very different from those previously described.

This is the foundational book for the new series, Teacher Education, Learning Innovation and Accountability. The book canvasses research, practice and policy perspectives in teacher education across diverse geographic, social and political contexts. It explores the lifespan of teacher development from initial preparation through to graduate classroom practice as it occurs in an intensifying culture of standards and regulation. The characterization of initial teacher education (ITE) in a crucible of change permeates throughout the book. The chapters open up new ways of thinking about innovation and accountability in ITE and the professionalization of teaching, exploring fundamental questions, such as “Who are the actors in teacher preparation and how do they interact? How can we learn about the quality of teacher education? Where can we hear the voices of teacher educators and preservice teachers, as well as school-based teacher educators? What are the new and emerging roles of others in teacher education who have not been involved previously, including employing authorities?” (p. 22). While the book provides responses to these and other provocative questions, it also offers new insights into innovative teacher education from a wide range of policy and practice contexts.

This book examines immigrant student achievement and education policy across a range of Western nations. It is divided into 3 sections: Part 1 introduces the topic of immigrant student achievement and the performance disadvantage that is consistently reported across a range of international jurisdictions. Part 2 then presents national profiles from scholars in ten countries (England, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Republic of Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). These educational jurisdictions were selected because they represent a range of Western nations engaged in large-scale reform efforts geared towards enhancing their immigrant students'achievement. Each of the national profiles provides a brief overview of the evolution of the cultural composition of their respective school-aged student population; explains the trajectory of achievement results in non-immigrant and immigrant student groups in relation to both national and international large-scale assessment measures; and discusses the effectiveness of policy responses that have been adopted to close the achievement gap between non-immigrant and immigrant student populations. It also examines the relationships between education policies and immigrant student achievement and discusses how education policies have evolved across various cultural contexts. In conclusion, Part 3 analyzes cross-cultural approaches designed to address the performance disadvantage of immigrant students and proposes future areas of inquiry stemming from the national profiles. The book offers insights into a diverse cross-section of nations and policy approaches to addressing the performance disadvantage.

This book aims to make a contribution to the theory, research and practice on quality and equity in education by providing a comprehensive overview of these two dimensions of educational effectiveness and proposing a methodological instrument that may be used to measure the contribution that each school can make to promoting equity. The importance of using this instrument is demonstrated by analysing results of various effectiveness studies conducted over the last decade. The book draws upon research across the world, especially research conducted in the Europe, the United States, and Australasia. It is shown that promoting equity has no negative effect on the promotion of quality. The importance of using this methodological instrument to identify factors that promote both quality and equity at different educational levels (i.e. teacher, school and educational system) is stressed. The book also demonstrates how we can measure stability and changes in the effectiveness status of schools over time in terms of fostering quality and equity. In addition it underlines the importance of identifying factors measuring changes in the effectiveness status of schools in terms of equity and points to the alternative strategies that can be used at school and system level. In our attempt to encourage the further development and use of this methodology for school improvement purposes, we demonstrate how experimental studies can be conducted to discover whether and under which conditions the proposed methodology can help schools promote both quality and equity. Finally, implications for school evaluation, research, educational policy and practice are drawn. In this way, the book contributes significantly to the debate on how quality and equity can be achieved and encourages policy-makers and practitioners not to view these two dimensions of effectiveness as being in competition with each other but as constituting the major objectives of any reform policy and/or improvement effortat school and/or national levels.

This book provides a review of the effectiveness of Opportunity to Learn (OTL) operationalized as the association between OTL and student achievement. In addition, it presents an elaborate conceptual map in which OTL is regarded as part of a larger concept of curriculum alignment. Major components of this framework are national goals and standards, school curricula, formative tests, textbooks, actual delivery of content as part of teaching, and summative tests and examinations.Alignment between educational goals, intended and implemented curricula, and educational outcomes is considered an important prerequisite for effective education. The expectation is that better alignment leads to better student performance. The concept of OTL is commonly used to compare content covered, as part of the implemented curriculum, with student achievement. As such it is to be seen as a facet of the broader concept of “alignment”. As it comes to enhancing OTL in educational policyand practice, proactive curriculum development is compared to a more retroactive orientation. Legitimate forms of test and examination preparation belong to this retroactive orientation, and are seen as favorable conditions for optimizing OTL. This book reviews the research evidence on the effects of OTL on student achievement by means of detailed descriptions of key-empirical studies, a review of meta-analyses, a “vote count” syntheses of 51 empirical studies, conducted between 1995 and 2015, and a secondary analysis based on TIMSS 2011, and PISA 2012 data. It concludes that the effect size of OTL, at about.30, is modest, but comparable in size to other effectiveness-enhancing conditions in schooling. The final chapter of the book provides suggestions for educational policy and practice to further optimize OTL.

In this volume prominent scholars, experts in their respective fields and highly skilled in the research they conduct, address educational and reading research from varied perspectives and address what it will take to close the achievement gap—with specific attention to reading. The achievement gap is redefined as a level at which all groups can compete economically in our society and have the literacy tools and habits needed for a good life. Bringing valuable theoretical frameworks and in-depth analytical approaches to interpretation of data, the contributors examine factors that contribute to student achievement inside the school but which are also heavily influenced by out-of-school factors—such as poverty and economics, ethnicity and culture, family and community stratifications, and approaches to measurement of achievement. These out-of-school factors present possibilities for new policies and practice. The overarching theme is that achievement gaps in reading are complex and that multiple perspectives are necessary to address the problem. The breadth and depth of perspectives and content in this volume and its conceptualization of the achievement gap are a significant contribution to the field.

After decades spent pondering basic questions about adopting or implementing ‘best practices'in education, educators have assembled a canon of evidence-based strategies and programs that should consistently produce good outcomes. So why is the work of educating students still such challenging work for so many? The best, most skilled educators adapt programs every day to meet the changing needs of their students. One size does not fit all, and one textbook, teaching strategy, or program will never meet the needs of all teachers and learners. Adaptive Implementation: Navigating the School Improvement Landscape focuses on how practitioners and researchers together continue to improve their craft by systematically collecting data on adaptations, testing them out, and figuring out what works. We provide a framework for building an adaptive implementation process in education, with tools and templates for practitioners to use. In the end, we hope that this book sparks a dialogue among educators as they continue to create adaptive implementation processes that work for their context.

Individuelle Begabungen zu fördern ist eine wichtige Aufgabe von Lehrpersonen, aber auch eine anspruchsvolle. Im Sinne der Professionalisierung von Lehrpersonen stellt sich die Frage, inwieweit eine entsprechende Potenzialorientierung bereits in der ersten Phase der Lehrerbildung unterstützt werden kann. In der vorliegenden Studie zur Entwicklung der adaptiven Lehrkompetenz von Studierenden im Kontext forschenden Lernens werden anhand von qualitativen und quantitativen Daten Lern- und Arbeitsprozesse untersucht. Dabei wird das Forder-Förder-Projekt Advanced, das an der Universität Münster durch das Internationale Centrum für Begabungsforschung und das Landeskompetenzzentrum Individuelle Förderung NRW in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft umgesetzt wird, herangezogen. Es werden Selbst- und Fremdeinschätzungen in Hinblick auf die Kompetenzentwicklung aufeinander bezogen und mit Fallvignetten, Interviews und Entwicklungsportfolios sowie Schüler-Testdaten vielfältige Datenquellen genutzt.

Narrowing the Achievement Gap proposes a radical change to our conception of learning, education and schooling, arguing that parental engagement is the best lever we have for school improvement and closing the achievement gap. Unique in its focus on original research linking underachievement and parental engagement, this book uses a range of international case studies to demonstrate that achievement isn't only reliant on what happens in school and that what happens out of school is equally important.Each chapter explores how schools can actively engage with parents and communities to reinstate education in the home, and to generate support to combat issues out of their control, including poverty, deprivation, and a lack of social capital. Although schools have an integral part to play in this process, it argues that parents and society must reconsider their own educational responsibility, regardless of background, and offers a solid research base and practical suggestions to help do so.Consisting of an in-depth and contemporary study of this significant issue in educational achievement and written by an expert in the field, this text will appeal to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of education, schooling, sociology of education, school effectiveness and improvement, school policy and school leadership.

The purpose of this book is to describe critical success factors impacting students pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at historically Black colleges and universities. The information in this book is designed to enhance strategies and research to improve students'engagement experiences, graduation rates, and career development outcomes.

This collection of articles from Educational Leadership pulls together some of the best pieces on formative assessment and feedback that will help educators understand how to best use the data they have at their fingertips. The articles provide insights into the purpose of formative assessment (Guskey; Tomlinson); the principles to follow for giving the most effective feedback (Wiggins; Hattie; Brookhart; Dweck); and multiple strategies for using effective formative assessment in daily lessons (Wiliam, Duckor, Chappuis, Fisher and Frey, Dueck, and Grdina). The authors tell fellow educators about how to use formative assessment to shape the next phase of instruction and how to look for patterns in students'assessments and assignments—the mistakes students frequently make and the signals that tell what individuals need, what groups of kids need, and what the whole class needs. And they present excellent advice about how to make your feedback more apt to be heard and acted upon by your students. Whether you are a new or experienced teacher, a school leader, a teacher educator, or a member of a professional learning community, this collection of articles can help you reflect on ways to use assessment to more powerfully boost learning.

Education for this generation's youth is the key for our nation's future well-being but it is now threatened by political correctness. A politically correct environment seeks to avoid controversial issues by maintaining the status quo on matters related to workers in the education system while avoiding the best interests of the stakeholders, and it is for this reason that political correctness must be challenged on many issues in our school system, so that our children have a better chance for learning well and then living well. This book's focus is on using accountability to pressure the system toward implementing reforms necessary for winning. It deals with educational policies, which are controversial and also identified by others for being problematic, rather than classroom practices. The solutions, or recommendations, proposed are intended to ensure that policies align with the best interests of students, parents, and taxpayers rather than with those of the service providers.

The media is full of reference to failing schools, troublesome pupils, underperforming boys, disappearing childhood and a teaching profession in crisis as more and more teachers contemplate abandoning their careers. Key Questions in Education looks at the current and historical debates of each of these issues, examining how a multitude of stakeholders have viewed, and still view, childhood and schooling. In highlighting how these same or similar issues have persistently been debated throughout time, John T. Smith shows something of their complexity and the need to break apart these key enduring questions in education.Each chapter covers a key question such as: How far should the state interfere in education? Should schools feed their pupils? and Why do children misbehave? Analysing each key question, chapters discuss how such issues were viewed or defined in the past, what solutions and outcomes were envisaged and compare and contrast how this relates to where we are now. Clear links are made throughout between historical sources and current ideology, policy, practice and research. In opening up these debates through case studies and vignettes, students are encouraged to reflect on how these contentious issues might be resolved and how this affects them as future educators.

This volume focuses on how family-school partnerships are conceptualized, defined, and operationalized as well as the research that is needed to advance these foundational issues. Each chapter integrates prevailing approaches into a research-based framework for supporting learning from pre-K through high school. The book incorporates structural and relational methods into the larger context of educational processes to promote research about collaboration and to improve the academic and behavioral development of students. Diverse theories and models of family-school alliances demonstrate approaches and interventions that are goal-directed and strengths-based, respectful and responsive. In addition, the book analyzes cognitive, behavioral, and interpersonal aspects of partnership and discusses different methods of assessing parental involvement and student outcomes.Included in the coverage are innovative, agenda-setting discussions on: Definitions and conceptual frameworks of family-school partnerships.Need-satisfying partnerships.Diverse parent perspectives and participation.Measurement of family-school partnership constructs over time.Foundational Aspects of Family-School Partnership Research is an essential resource for researchers, professionals, and graduate students in child and school psychology, educational policy and politics, family studies, developmental psychology, sociology of education, sociology, and anthropology.

Strategic Inquiry is an innovative model for promoting teacher collaboration around identifying specific “learning gaps” that keep struggling students from succeeding.Gaps may include anything from the proper use of commas and conjunctions to concepts such as “slope” in math. The authors argue that addressing these critical learning gaps can lead to big changes in student success, in teachers'sense of efficacy, and in school culture.The strategic inquiry model has been implemented in schools and districts around the country, including New York City, where it was rigorously evaluated with impressive results.As Common Core standards raise the bar for student learning ever higher, this proven approach promises to build teachers'capacity for closing the gap between where struggling students are and where they need to be.'

Many students are penalized from maximizing their academic potential simply by being born at the wrong time of the year. Not only is there a significant decline in achievement for students born in the second half of the year but they also experience higher rates of failure which negatively impacts self-esteem and reduces future success.Meanwhile, more capable students experience unfairness because of the school's extraordinary effort at helping their failing students. With so much focus on the weak, many strong students are held back from achieving their potential. Parents agonize over when to begin their child's formal education but lack data for making informed decisions. Educators understand the issue intuitively but decision makers lack data for justifying reform. These informational needs are now available in Being Fair with Kids.

Supplementary education consists of private instruction that complements and sometimes'shadows'formal school content. Providers range from informal and part-time tutors to highly institutionalized, multi-national corporate franchises. This phenomenon is growing worldwide and has many potential impacts on formal education systems. This volume is the first multi-national examination of this topic and includes'big picture'analyses to comparatively explain the intensity, authority and policy contexts of supplementary education. Quantitative and qualitative case studies of countries with high and low intensity forms of supplementary education are detailed. The chapters aim to deepen comparative and interdisciplinary knowledge on the impact of these educational markets on formal school systems, and inform future research and policy on supplementary education.

A large body of research in disciplines from sociology and policy studies to neuroscience and educational psychology has confirmed that socioeconomic status remains the most powerful influence on children's educational outcomes. Socially disadvantaged children around the world disproportionately suffer from lower levels of educational achievement, which in turn leads to unfavourable long-term outcomes in employment and health. Education in the Best Interests of the Child addresses this persistent problem, which violates not only the principle of equal educational opportunity, but also the broader principle of the best interests of the child as called for in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.Building on the children's rights work accomplished in their previous book, Empowering Children, Brian Howe and Katherine Covell identify three types of reform that can significantly close the educational achievement gap. Their findings make an important argument for stronger and more comprehensive action to equalize educational opportunities for disadvantaged children.

The Infrastructure of Accountability brings together leading and emerging scholars who set forth an ambitious conceptual framework for understanding the full impact of large-scale, performance-based accountability systems on education. Over the past 20 years, schools and school systems have been utterly reshaped by the demands of test-based accountability. Interest in large-scale performance data has reached an unprecedented high point. Yet most education researchers focus primarily on questions of data quality and the effectiveness of data use. In this bold and thought-provoking volume, the contributors look beneath the surface of all this activity to uncover the hidden infrastructure that supports the production, flow, and use of data in education, and explore the impact of these large-scale information systems on American schooling. These systems, the editors note, “sit at the juncture of technical networks, work practices, knowledge production, and moral order.

This book critically examines the socio-cultural role of achievement within education, arguing that the increasingly global demand for measurable standards of academic achievement is an expression of political ideology and the aggressive competitive reality of a neo-capitalist schooling system, resulting in many students feeling socially worthless.

A proven system to boost high school graduation rates This guide helps school leaders and government policymakers boost high school graduation rates. Drawing from his knowledge as an education official and professor, author Ben Levin presents a system to turn around secondary schools that is adaptable for local-, district-, and state-level decision making. Components include: Keeping track of all students'progress and intervening early to prevent failure Establishing curriculum and graduation requirements that support increased student success Improving teaching and learning Connecting with the community to engage families, local businesses, and other stakeholders in improving graduation rates Implementing methods for planning, communicating, and winning support

2013 American Educational Research Association's (AERA) Moral Development and Education Outstanding Book AwardIn Character Compass, Scott Seider offers portraits of three high-performing urban schools in Boston, Massachusetts that have made character development central to their mission of supporting student success, yet define character in three very different ways.One school focuses on students'moral character development, another emphasizes civic character development, and the third prioritizes performance character development. Drawing on surveys, interviews, field notes, and student achievement data, Character Compass highlights the unique effects of these distinct approaches to character development as well as the implications for parents, educators, and policymakers committed to fostering powerful school culture in their own school communities.

This book explains how a teaching system focused on identifying and stoking each student's strengths—rather than concentrating on deficits—can bring remarkable academic improvement and achievement.It's a familiar and seemingly logical model: to improve performance, identify weaknesses and target these problem areas. Could doing the opposite be a better way? Licensed clinical psychologist Elsie Jones-Smith argues that strengths-based systems are indeed more effective—not just in social work, where the philosophy became popular; or in the business world, where the concept is increasingly being embraced—but in the academic setting as well.Spotlighting the Strengths of Every Single Student: Why U.S. Schools Need a New, Strengths-Based Approach explains how and why a system that focuses on students'strengths enables kids to be self-confident, goal-directed, and to possess a stronger sense of self-efficacy, self-control, and academic achievement. Jones-Smith also explains how such a system spurs appreciation and advancement of multiple intelligences, which in turn gives students the ability to address weaknesses—on their own. Another plus: this approach has also been shown to generally reduce school disciplinary actions and increase class attendance time.

Expectations have been raised in Australia and comparable countries for an'education revolution'that will secure success for all students in all settings. Such a revolution must ensure the alignment of educational outcomes, the skills required for a strong economy, and the needs of a harmonious society. Why not the Best Schools? offers a ten-point, ten-year plan for an education revolution that will result in the transformation of Australia's schools.

This book brings together the current thinking and research of two major investigators in the field of educational effectiveness. After defining educational effectiveness, the authors analyse the various theories and strands of research within educational effectiveness, especially with respect to the comprehensive model developed by Creemers. Written by one of the worlds leading experts in the field, this book will both elucidate our current understanding of educational effectiveness and carry the discipline forward by proposing profound changes to accepted views.

Educators devoted to school reform focus all too often on the isolated components of K-12 education--this is the essential premise of this powerful new book. If we are truly committed to improving our schools, the author contends, then we must focus on the interdependence of variables that affect student learning, both inside and outside the classroom.The book is divided into three distinct parts. In Part 1, Danielson introduces the Four Circles Model to define the criteria for successful school improvement: Everything educators do to help their students learn must be based on what educators want (school, district, or state goals), believe (values and principles), and know (educational research).In Part 2, the author provides a framework for improving schools--including curriculum, team planning, and policies and practices affecting students--and connects every concept to the criteria presented in Part 1. She also provides a handy rubric at the end of each chapter, both as a summary of main points and as a tool for educators to gauge the needs of their school. Part 3 offers readers guidelines on how best to implement the framework using action planning.Brimming with perceptive advice and thought-provoking arguments, this book is both a wake-up call and a roadmap to success for those determined to provide students with the best education possible.Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.