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Teachers today have a window of opportunity to shape education in a way that will impact the profession for generations. In this compelling and comprehensive book, educator and best-selling author Anthony Muhammad explores the educational hurdles of the past in the context of present-day concerns and envisions an education system where all schools energetically embrace the PLC at Work® process. This book will help K–12 educators: Reflect on the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on student learning and educator approaches Gain insight on what professional learning communities are Differentiate between PLC and PLC Lite and understand the role of commitment in an effective PLC Apply lessons learned from past challenges in education to present-day concerns Determine how to face teacher morale and retention, student trauma and mental health, inequitable funding and accountability systems, and student academic achievement gaps Understand the racial, gender, and disability movements of the past Contents: Foreword by Robert Eaker Introduction Chapter 1: A Moment of Clarity Chapter 2: The Past—How Did We Get Here? Chapter 3: The Present—Where Are We Now? Chapter 4: The Future—Where Do We Go From Here? Chapter 5: Staying the Course—Are We Implementing PLC Right or PLC Lite? Afterword Appendix References

A shrewd examination and critique of an industry that exerts a far-reaching influence on college admissions in the United States.

Discover how the crisis of a global pandemic allowed educators to improve learning across the pre-K–adult pipeline. While acknowledging the scale of loss and difficulty the COVID pandemic engendered within the field of education, this book focuses on how sudden and forced changes to teaching and learning created “Pandemic Positives,” which can be captured and brought to scale. In particular: Part I addresses how Pandemic Positives came into being, with special attention to the presence of educator hope and creativity. Part II explores the Pandemic Positives that arose in three settings: when schools were closed, when learning turned online, and when schools re-opened. Part III provides strategies for replicating the Pandemic Positives so they become positive educational game changers. This book is grounded on trauma and mental wellness theory and includes the in-the-trenches experiences and voices of educators. The text features art created by the coauthors and shares both their professional and personal experiences, humanizing and enriching the book. Mending Education completes a trilogy composed of Breakaway Learners and Trauma Doesn't Stop at the School Door by Karen Gross. “We have all bemoaned the COVID pandemic and its lasting negative effects, but Karen Gross and Edward Wang turn that pessimism on its head. Their extensive experience in education is augmented by the priceless data gathered through their research survey of teachers and educators. This is a must-have for educators everywhere.” —Chris Messina-Boyer, educational crisis manager/crisis communications consultant, 20Buttonwood PR Solutions LLC

Essentials of Education Policy improves students'and educational leaders'understanding of the complex education policy system in the U.S.Through an applied pedagogical approach that connects analytical concepts from public policy and education research to professional practice, the book offers academic content and applications for elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education leaders. Grounded in pillars of policy studies – educational foundations, governance structures and policy subsystems, the policy process, and specific policy issues – the book provides educational leaders with the knowledge and skills necessary to solve fundamental inequities in American education and empowers them to become change agents.This engaging textbook will be essential reading for students and scholars in Education Policy, Leadership, and Educational Foundations, as well as for educational leaders.

A rallying cry for equitable education informed by a revolutionary re-reading of Brown v. Board of Education, on the 70th anniversary of the ruling

An evidence-based plan of action to achieve educational justice for K–12 public school students from families whose income is 50% or more below the US poverty threshold

Transforming Education: Building Foundations for Systemic Change and Empowered Communities provides an engaging and pragmatic roadmap for transformational change in education systems. Written for school superintendents and board members, it unveils a five-step theory of action that enables lasting, systemic reforms. Dr. Shepherd intertwines theoretical knowledge with real-life case studies, guiding leaders through comprehensive strategic planning, engaging stakeholders, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, leveraging resources, and implementing innovative policies. Central to the discourse is the idea of viewing school districts as dynamic ecosystems that can be shaped for optimal learning outcomes. By developing robust systemic architectures, the book empowers leaders to facilitate educational transformations that transcend the transactional changes often witnessed in school districts. This book is a transformative tool for those daring to reimagine the future of education.

Proven practices to rescue struggling education initiatives... or prevent a crisis before it starts. Insufficient planning, unclear outcomes, missing data--for leaders overseeing education initiatives, it can often seem like there′s a crisis around every corner. Drawing on decades of experience in assessment, evaluation, and data-driven decision-making, author and Professor of Educational Leadership James Marshall offers a combination of evidence-based practices and real-life experiences that provide practical solutions to the diverse challenges school leaders encounter as they implement new initiatives. Exploring oft-encountered challenges such as poor outcomes, waning interest or support from leadership, public relations issues, scaling and sustainability roadblocks, and other implementation-related obstacles--the book identifies six types of crises confronted by education leaders and offers valuable insights and solutions for each. Features include: Guidance to recognize the six types of education initiative crises and strategies for resolution tailored to each type 24 unique tools to positively impact challenges, such as the'Triage Tool'to prioritize crisis intervention and the'Don't Swamp the Boat'tool to explore the complement of initiatives in your school Two case studies and real world examples illustrating the application of selected tools across a range of crisis types Whether you're an education leader dealing with a program or initiative in crisis or proactively looking to prevent a crisis, Fixing Education Initiatives in Crisis provides practical solutions to navigate troubled initiatives and guidance for the design and implementation of healthy initiatives that yield predictable results.

To address today's numerous goals and challenges, K–12 schools need transformational leaders—leaders able to substantively enhance and improve educational systems and educator practices in order to achieve better, longer-lasting outcomes for all students. This practical resource is for superintendents, principals, and other education leaders who are charged with rapidly improving their schools and districts. Grounded in WestEd's research-based and field-tested Four Domains of Rapid School Improvement framework, this book offers guidance, support, and resources in the areas of school turnaround, talent development, instructional transformation, and culture shift. Every chapter includes prompts to encourage reflection and discussion with colleagues, as well as action steps to put guidance into practice. Transformational Leadership for Rapid School Improvement can be used as a text for educational leadership courses and for professional learning with practicing principals and superintendents. Contributors: Jenny Betz, Deborah A. Bradley, Andrea Browning, Alexis Stern, Rebecca Cerna, Shandy Hauk, Nancy Gerzon, Shazia Hashmi, Stephen C. Hamilton, Nancy Hurley, Joyce Kaser, Nakanya Magby, Dona Meinders, Michael Middleton, Michael P. Nagler, Maria Paredes, Christina Pate, Kristen Reedy, Robert Rosenfeld, Saroja Warner

Promoting equity and improvement science has seen increased attention over the last several years as educators seek to expand the experiences, opportunities, and outcomes for marginalized students. This book shows school and district leaders how to create the conditions needed to use improvement science—with its robust collection of tools, resources, and processes—to achieve equity. Readers will find information about equity, continuous improvement, and the psychology of change that can be used to productively and respectfully engage all stakeholders. Chapters include the rationale for employing improvement science to pursue equity; advice for developing the dispositions of an equity-focused leader who thinks differently about power, possibility, and measurement; and guidance for facilitating conversations in the service of equitable improvement. Equitable School Improvement is important reading for teachers, coaches, principals, central office leaders, and any educator who wants to be part of creating a more socially just educational system for our children. Book Features: Elaborates on the habits and practices that need to be developed if educators are to overcome the significant barriers to talk about transformation in the service of equity. Focuses on the human side of change, including honoring people and their stories and dismantling power structures that interfere with change. Provides guidance to leaders at all levels for creating the conditions for equity-focused improvement work. Moves beyond deficit perspectives and outmoded tropes, such as goals have agency, teachers are resistant, and race causes low achievement. Makes the tools contained in improvement science more accessible to today's equity leaders.

In Getting Education Right, Rick Hess and Mike McShane argue that America has too long suffered from the absence of a robust, coherent, and principled conservative vision for educational improvement. The book both diagnoses a problem and offers a solution. The problem? The right has too narrowly focused on school choice, campus speech, and shrinking Washington's footprint, while the left has sought to subsidize and supersize the status quo. The solution? An education system imbued with shared values, respectful of family ties, and equipped for the challenges of the 21st century. Rooted in fundamental conservative principles, the book explains both how we got here and where we need to go when it comes to early childhood, K–12, and higher education. Eschewing performative polemics, this book offers a field guide to bringing education back to its formative mission. Readers from across the ideological spectrum will benefit from engaging with the provocative analysis Hess and McShane offer, whether or not they agree with the policies they propose. Education is the foundation on which America's future will be constructed, and Getting Education Right provides a timely blueprint for that project.Book Features:A conservative vision for the direction of American education in early childhood, K–12, and higher education.A stimulating and informative presentation for audiences across the ideological spectrum.An explanation of what it means to be a conservative in education today applied to a series of crucial questions about American schooling.A readable and accessible text with plenty of anecdotes, provocative data points, and real-world solutions. Authors who are especially well-suited to this task given their prominence as influential conservative scholars and pundits.

How public are America's public schools? They may be tax funded and free, but the combination of market-based policies, exclusionary governance, insufficient funding, and structural inequities impair schools'ability to prepare future citizens, workers, neighbors, and stewards of the planet. Gyurko offers a fresh look at the “publicness” of American education through historical accounts, scholarly research, first-hand reporting, and political analyses. Chapters on funding, governance, standards, accountability, and equity show what must be done to better identify and strengthen the shared aims of public schools. Novel insights explain how even controversial topics like charter schools, testing, teacher tenure, and the unions can be part of a broad “Publicization Project.” Champions of public education will find a compelling vision and achievable roadmap that moves the country beyond decades of privatization. Publicization is an essential introduction to major debates of past decades with a hopeful vision of what it means to be an educated American. Book Features: Speaks directly to political controversies affecting education including school choice, book banning, the “reading wars,” board elections, critical race theory, and teacher unions. Offers first-hand, never-before-reported accounts of high-profile efforts involving prominent political players including AFT president Randi Weingarten, former U.S. education secretary Arne Duncan, former NYC mayors Michael R. Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio and schools chancellor Joel I. Klein, Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz, former PBS correspondent John Merrow, KIPP cofounder David Levin, late philanthropist Eli Broad, small schools founder Deborah Meier, and historian and activist Diane Ravitch. Provides pragmatic recommendations that cross political divides including a fresh look at charter schools, the role of unions and collective bargaining, parent involvement in school decision-making, standardized testing, and equity-advancing reforms. Gathers the history of education ideas, thinkers, and past reforms to provide new generations of educators with a cogent summary of what has come before to inform what comes next.

This book shares the experiences of refugees settled in the Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia area (DMV) over the last ten years and their journeys back into education. What motivated their paths to access and success in education? What were their dreams and aspirations? What obstacles stood in their way and how did they overcome them? Who helped them along the way? What advice do they have for others experiencing displacement? Finally, what can institutions and policymakers do to integrate them more successfully? This book was conceived, researched, and written by the students and faculty of The George Washington University Refugee Educational Advancement Laboratory (REAL). Over a year of research, members of the REAL conducted in-depth interviews with students of refugee background and the family members who support them, spoke with practitioners at local, national, and international relief organizations who serve them, and consulted with experts of displacement and reintegration who study them. The findings offer a testament to the persistence of displaced individuals, who are determined to overcome steep odds and achieve their educational dreams. They also offer a clear set of guidelines for institutions, administrators, and policy makers who have it in their power to make a difference.

The Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution places education firmly under the purview of the states. As such, and from the time the first public education system was conceived in the United States, there have been endless battles under the domes of state capitals everywhere to create, control, and reform educational policy. However, despite the prominent role that states and their legislatures have as central actors in forming educational policy, very few policy actors and even fewer academics have been able to pierce the veil of policymaking at the state level. This case study addresses that gap by examining how one particular educational policy – The Michigan Public Education Finance Act – was created, lived, died, and was resurrected in the State of Michigan. Through the exploration of this policy, there is a particular focus on the use of critical legal theory to examine hidden power structure embedded in the legislative legal system and apply this often-overlooked critical approach to education policy research. Readers will come to understand what educational policymaking looks like at the state level and how to engage their voice in the process. With the increasing political nature of education policy and the fight to control it in the halls of local state capitals, educators as well as the public need to know how to access the political system and have their voice heard. However, it can also appear to be impenetrable to an outsider. This book will demystify the policy making process.

In their haste to help students, many schools often gloss over the foundational work of professional learning communities (PLCs). In The Foundation for Change, educators learn how to transform their school's mission, vision, values, and goals to frame the mindsets and actions in a PLC that lead to school improvement and high levels of learning for all. This book helps K–12 teachers, leaders, and administrators: Follow the journey of one school as it moves through the steps of the PLC at Work® process Understand how educators can contribute to developing and integrating the four pillars into classroom practice Clarify the role of the guiding coalition in implementing the four pillars as the foundation for changing school culture Reflect on chapter content with end-of-chapter questions for deeper learning Gain practical templates, charts, and other reproducible tools and resources Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Mission—Clarifying Why Your School Exists Chapter 2: Vision—Making the School You Want to Become a Reality Chapter 3: Collective Commitments—Practicing Transformative Behaviors Chapter 4: Goals—Embracing SMART Goals in Collaborative Teams Epilogue: Framing Your Journey Appendix References and Resources Index

While several texts provide pedagogical and theoretical insights on improvement science for faculty, graduate students, and educational leaders, practitioners'voices are seldom heard. Improvement Science in the Field: Cases of Practitioners Leading Change in Schools fills this gap by presenting real-life cases of K-12 practitioners'use of improvement science to lead change in their educational systems.Improvement Science in the Field: Cases of Practitioners Leading Change in Schools contains two sections. Part I presents practitioners'accounts of their use of improvement science to address actual problems of practice, such as closing discipline and achievement gaps, managing teacher stress and mental health, and improving school climate. Part II follows a tradition of case-based teaching in which authors provide part of their improvement journey and then invite readers to practice, discuss, brainstorm, and reflect on how they would address the problem presented using the tools of improvement science.

A revolutionary proposal for a conceptual and organizational framework for US public education that benefits all citizens.

Envisioned as a story, a guide, a resource, and an aesthetic experience, this book features the work of a multigenerational collective of K–12 educators, students, and teaching artists seeking educational justice. This multivocal approach illustrates how bringing together arts-infused writing pedagogies, with the visionary and intellectual force of freedom dreaming, can create more luminous and socially transformative educational spaces. Through vivid vignettes, compelling first-person narratives, mixed media artwork, and detailed lesson plans, readers will experience schools as places of joy, belonging, and justice. As an act of radical hope during the turmoil and trauma of post-pandemic times, this book invites readers to draw on the principles of freedom dreaming and abolitionist teaching to imagine and enact arts-infused writing pedagogies across a multitude of settings. Authors offer guidance for teachers, teacher educators, and professional development leaders wishing to take up this work in their own contexts.Book Features:Provides detailed guidelines and principles for enacting arts-infused writing pedagogies, adaptable to a range of contexts.Showcases original artwork by K–12 students and educators, many in full color. Includes insights on teaching writing and engaging in inquiry-based professional learning from a local site of the National Writing Project.Highlights the role of teaching artists in enhancing teacher and student learning.Illuminates the potential of a/r/tography, affect, and wonder in qualitative inquiry.Contains visually arresting and narratively powerful contributions from students as young as 6 years old to teachers nearing retirement, as well as professional artists and novelists.Contributors: Marcus Kwame Anderson, Mandy Berghela, Dana Corcoran, Cheryl L. Dozier, Tammy Ellis-Robinson, Brittany Gonzalez-Barone, Emily Hass, Rana Hughes, H. D. Hunter, Patricia Poole Jeffress, Rae Johnson, Maria Latorre, Kyle McHugh, Gina M. Mooney, Christina Pepe, Matt Pinchinat, Brandon Porter, Camille Ramos, Amy Salamone, Fatima Shah, Alisa Sikelianos-Carter, Christina Taylor, Hanum Tyagita, Alicia Wein, Leah Werther, Vanessia Wilkins, Kelly K. Wissman, Jacquelyn Woods, Shania Yearwood

The purpose of this book is to help secondary school principals and college faculty fulfill their key role for continuous improvement planning of educational practices and safety at their institution. Rapid social and technological advances have motivated the consideration of student voice in schools across the United States. By merging student voice and educator expertise, an intergenerational perspective can emerge that more accurately portrays the strengths and limitations of a school. Strom and Strom began their research on student voice by partnering with adolescents and principals from several schools to identify topics they saw as appropriate for polling to improve schools. This effort led to the development of ten polls on school stress, career exploration, time management, attention and distraction, tutoring, peer support, school cheating, frustration, cyberbullying, and Internet learning. Every poll contains 15 to 20 multiple-choice items. The process model for polling includes a step-by-step procedure that educational leaders can use to plan and implement school improvement. Different methods of data analysis and ways to report overall evidence-based school results are presented by age, gender, grade and ethnicity. Student polling is distinctive from other assessment strategies because the target for data gathering is a single school, without comparison to other schools. This narrow base to assess student voice ensures poll results are anonymous and have local relevance to guide stakeholder responses. The results of polling can provide data-based evidence that can be used for continuous education improvement planning. An additional benefit is to separately assess students in special education, gifted and talented programs, and second language acquisition learners. Our web site at learningpolls.org is intended to further inform educational leaders and invite their collaboration.

Hip-hop education helps teachers engage and connect with all learnersBy infusing lessons with content that is relevant to students'lives, inspires their curiosity, and fires up their intellect, teachers can use hip-hop education to help students better take in information and think critically about concepts, inside and outside the classroom.This must-have resource:Presents the what, why, and how of using hip-hop education in every classroomLays out five elements of hip-hop and maps them to instructional approaches and learning objectives, such as synthesizing new information, social emotional learning, cultural and linguistically responsive teaching, and arts education)Suggests an approach to lesson planning using the structure of a hip-hop song: use cultural references to inspire curiosity (Intro); engage students with core content through interactive experiences, exploratory activities, and games (Verse); ensure that students comprehend the information and can demonstrate their knowledge (Coda); and provide differentiation options (Remix)Fondly known as the Fresh Professor, James Miles uses classroom anecdotes, personal storytelling, and easy-to-grasp ideas to engage and inspire teachers to integrate hip-hop concepts and ideas into their classrooms, even if they aren't familiar with the approach (or the music), so students feel like they belong and their voice matters, and so they're successful in school and beyond.

Transformative leadership emerges as the beacon guiding P-12 schools and higher education institutions through the intricacies of necessary change. Leaders must confront the perennial challenges faced by educational institutions head-on, equipped with an array of innovative strategies and a commitment to fostering equitable practices, from addressing inclusion, diversity, and belonging to navigating the complex terrain of school change. In Transformative Leadership and Change Initiative Implementation for P-12 and Higher Education, the echoes of Heraclitus's wisdom reverberate, reminding educational leaders that the only constant is change. This book delves into the core of transformative strategies employed by thought leaders across the educational spectrum, from P-12 schools to university corridors. Guided by transformative leadership principles, this book traverses the intricate tapestry of topics such as technology integration, educational entrepreneurship, and global citizenship, providing a roadmap for leaders to navigate the complexities of the modern educational landscape. The emphasis on social-emotional leadership and learning underscores the importance of nurturing the holistic development of students, ensuring they thrive both academically and emotionally. This book explains the backgrounds, literature, strategies, and implementation of transformative initiatives. The authors, drawing from their wealth of experience and leveraging the insights of doctoral graduates, weave a narrative that informs and inspires. The target audience — educational leaders aspiring to be thought leaders — will find a compendium of actionable insights and replicable innovations in this book.

An invigorating take on how community and technical colleges can center equity in fostering institutional transformation

Discover a team-oriented approach for reshaping classrooms into spaces where each student is seen, valued, and empowered to learn. Author Angie Freese offers a readiness framework for building a classroom community that honors the unique perspectives, experiences, and assets of each learner. Practical strategies and tools embolden educators to create inclusive learning environments built on dignity, authenticity, and connection. This book will help you, as a K–12 teacher or administrator: Explore the attributes and core tendencies that evolve within Meant for More classrooms Study the infrastructure needed to elevate each attribute into learning environments Recognize and celebrate your individual strengths and assets Lean into vulnerability regarding the barriers to district, school, and classroom success Use a continuum to monitor your comfort level with each attribute discussed Bring student voice into the dialogue around meaningful, relevant classroom instruction Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Building Awareness Chapter 2: Embracing Authenticity Chapter 3: Fostering Connection Chapter 4: Pursuing Passion Chapter 5: Empowering Voice Chapter 6: Nurturing Resilience Chapter 7: Giving Grace Epilogue: Until We Meet Again References and Resources Index

A must-read for every teacher in the 21st century, this book provides a comprehensive guide to facilitating joyful, sustainable, holistic, multidisciplinary, and active learning. The book discusses different approaches, principles, techniques, and activities for creating a classroom where different learning types can thrive. The methods outlined in this volume help teachers ensure that every learner, regardless of background or orientation, can engage in participatory, reflective, self-directed, experiential, entrepreneurial, and collaborative learning and develop holistically. Essential for the 21st century, the book highlights the significance of digital technologies and examines how teachers can easily use digital technologies to offer personalized and blended learning.This book is a vital resource for teachers who want to improve their teaching skills and create a positive and engaging learning environment for their learners. This book helps teachers across the globe to enhance learning outcomes in classrooms and, subsequently, develop the quality of their education systems.This volume is useful to students, researchers, and teachers in education, psychology, development studies, social work, and sociology. It is also an invaluable companion to policymakers and professionals from government and non-government organisations working in the education and social development sectors.

'Paul has provided a vital piece to our understanding of modern liberalism's origins.'—Ronald J. Pestritto, Author of America Transformed: The Rise and Legacy of American ProgressivismToday's political and cultural divisions leave many wondering how America could have arrived at its present state. This book traces the source to an unlikely historical accident.The founding principles of the American Revolution—that all individuals have unalienable natural rights to life, liberty, and the fruits of their labor, and that governments should exist only to protect these rights—were a singularity in human history. The nation's failure to secure the slaves'equal rights to self-ownership led to a civil war and the constitutional recognition of this vital principle. And yet, scarcely four decades later, social science faculties at the country's top colleges and universities repudiated the country's founding principles.The cause of this startling change was the education that hundreds of American college students and graduates received in German universities in the late 19th century. Germany's professoriate was dominated by state socialists who taught that individuals had no natural rights, only privileges granted to them by the government. American students absorbed these beliefs and after their return, established this country's first graduate-level programs, seeding the first generation of PhDs. Inventing the name “progressives” for themselves, their goal was to recast America's governmental and economic institutions in the image of Germany's authoritarian government and oligarchical society. Higher education was transformed with disastrous results for the humanities and social sciences. Generation after generation of students, including those who went on to teach, abandoned this country's traditional relationship of the individual to the state. Over the next several decades, American politics, journalism, law, and education evolved in directions inimical to the nation's founding principles, leaving the country increasingly fractured—not unlike the decades leading up to the first Civil War. This book traces those changes, offering ways to alter the trajectory of today's political and educational culture. It includes a proposal to eliminate personal and corporate income and payroll taxes and raise today's government revenues with a low (1%) universal sales tax.

Wage stagnation, growing inequality, and even poverty itself have resulted from decades of neoliberal decision making, not the education system, writes Neil Kraus in his urgent call to action, The Fantasy Economy. Kraus claims the idea that both the education system and labor force are chronically deficient was aggressively and incorrectly promoted starting in the Reagan era, when corporate interests and education reformers emphasized education as the exclusive mechanism providing the citizenry with economic opportunity. However, as this critical book reveals, that is a misleading articulation of the economy and education system rooted in the economic self-interests of corporations and the wealthy. The Fantasy Economy challenges the basic assumptions of the education reform movement of the last few decades. Kraus insists that education cannot control the labor market and unreliable corporate narratives fuel this misinformation. Moreover, misguided public policies, such as accountability and school choice, along with an emphasis on workforce development and STEM over broad-based liberal arts education, have only produced greater inequality. Ultimately, The Fantasy Economy argues that education should be understood as a social necessity, not an engine of the neoliberal agenda. Kraus'book advocates for a change in conventional thinking about economic opportunity and the purpose of education in a democracy.

Learn how to transform your organizational culture and improve student outcomes by executing initiatives through an equity lens. Author Kim Wallace offers leaders a practical course of action to amplify opportunities and diminish systemic barriers for historically marginalized students. The ten-stage process, introduced in Wallace's book Leading the Launch, helps educators successfully integrate equity-centered implementations in their schools and districts. This book will help educational leaders and administrators: Seamlessly implement new equity-centered initiatives in their own organization Improve academic, social-emotional, and developmental outcomes for historically marginalized student groups Address and eliminate unproductive or harmful practices that impede transformational change Learn approaches and gain tools for engaging teachers, students, parents, and other stakeholders in implementation adoptions Cultivate school and district cultures that prioritize belonging and inclusion Utilize research, scenarios, action items, and reproducible handouts to develop and implement organizational strategies that equitably support diverse groups of students and families Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Barriers to Equity Chapter 2: Initial Stages Chapter 3: Trial Stages Chapter 4: Decision Stage Chapter 5: Execution Stages Chapter 6: Making Space Epilogue

A practical approach to shared inquiry and exploration in K-12 classrooms We are in a period of unknowns unlike any in a generation or more. As educators, we need new pathways and ideas that can help us educate children for the world to come. Reimagining the Classroom: Creating New Learning Spaces and Connecting with the World provides practical steps and examples that parents and educators can use to begin to create new learning spaces, approaches, and outcomes. Dr. Richards'provocative book asks us to reconsider some of our basic assumptions about teaching and learning. It helps parents and educators question and recast these assumptions and practices while providing concrete, tested activities and ideas that will help readers reimagine educational spaces rooted in the notion that classrooms—and the stories we tell in them—are a metaphor for the world we hope to create. Reimagining the Classroom is divided into two parts. The first offers the intellectual framework parents and educators are seeking; it identifies specific problems with current approaches, offers an alternative vision and set of narratives, and then offers a new pedagogy to satisfy this vision. The second part of the book moves from the theoretical to the practical. Dr. Richards provides tested pedagogical tools for classrooms in science and math; literature and fine arts; spirituality and mindfulness; practical arts; and justice and social-emotional learning. Discover practical tools for creating educational spaces that prepare students for the world they will encounter Help students express their values and learn to live in community Replace or supplement school with at-home learning and activities that will give students an edge for the future Learn how the traditional approach to education is failing our kids and leading to an epidemic of depression and anxiety For educators and parents ready to consider a radical shift in service of our children's wellbeing, this book explains what, fundamentally, education can and should look like.

This book presents arguments for adopting a Systems way of Thinking about developing schools to become in sync with the times, both locally and globally. Systems Thinking and Quality Management both are natural approaches for educators to adapt schooling to the rapid changes of life today in a global context. The chapters include strong rationales for adopting a more natural way of thinking about schooling, one that prepares students for life as it is now evolving around the world. Stories of success are abundant, which offer evidence of the power of a systems approach to leading school development in the complex context of schooling today. Research studies report up-to-date evidence of the power of Systems Thinking to continuously adapt schooling to changing conditions.

Districts and schools often count on coaching to promote student learning and organizational change. Across the United States, a wide variety of coaches engage in various types of work with teachers as well as school leaders. But coaching is often loosely defined, weakly supported, and ultimately underutilized and, as a consequence, its promise and potential have not been fully realized. In this book, the authors address misconceptions about the goals of coaching, what it involves, and how it aligns with reform efforts. They advance a new, coherent framing of coaching as a lever for strategic, equitable school improvement. Bridging research, theory, policy, and practice, this book provides insights to help educational reformers and district and school leaders strengthen the structures and activities of coaching. This timely book illustrates how to make coaching matter by assembling infrastructure and creating conditions so that coaching advances change in robust, sustaining, and equitable ways. Book Features:Provides useful information for educational leaders whose expertise may not extend to coaching, including tools and reflective questions.Offers a strong theoretical and research-based foundation, along with the authors'collective experience as researchers and practitioners and the voices of coaches and other educational leaders.Advocates for a coaching model that supports a district's overall strategy for centering equity and improving student learning. Describes how to build capacity and continuously improve coaching, and how to support coaching through leadership, logistics, and resources.

This timely collection provides an accessible discussion and analysis of some of the most urgent policy issues facing early childhood care and education in the United States: fragmented policy systems; broad disregard for early years professionals exemplified by low pay; standards that fail to increase equity; and overlooking the role community contexts plays in producing or ameliorating social inequalities among children. Contributors draw upon their deep personal experiences with these issues as educators, scholars, and advocates to advance practice-based recommendations for how the nation's inequitable systems can be transformed. Their call to collective action is supported by an accessible and powerful advocacy toolkit that will grow with readers over time and with practice. The text centers the perspectives of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, with a clear focus on the effects of systemic racism, ageism, sexism, classism, and associated oppressions on early years policies and programs in the U.S.Book Features:Concise essays that acknowledge the demands on contemporary readers'time.Authors that represent a cross section of educators, advocates, researchers, and leaders who are in dialogue with each other. Personal stories that illustrate how policies and systems affect people, making an urgent case for transforming early care and education policies.A call for action that includes tools for linking personal reflection to collective action.Contributors include Lea Austin, Stephanie Curenton, Kerry Ann Escayg, Lucinda Heimer, Iheoma Iruka, Jacqueline Jones, Anna Lees, and Chrishana Lloyd.

Leading with Vitality and Hope provides a practical resource for educators who want to move beyond the challenges schools are facing today. It both provides inspirational ideas from an impressive group of educational leaders and also practical ideas that you can take back to your local schools and communities for implementation. What is needed to move beyond the chaotic scenes we are continuing to face as schools reopen for in-person learning? The voices we hear from in Leading with Vitality and Hope suggest that we must first re-introduce a sense of vitality and hope. This can be done with mindfulness, visioning, and strategic leadership that attends to self-care, advocacy, and collective efficacy. Each of these themes is woven throughout case study scenarios presented by 20 leaders as they describe their vision, how they garnered support, and how their visions have set the stage for transformational change to enhance equity, reduce discrimination, alleviate trauma, and lead to greater well-being for students and staff in schools.

The Arc of Educational Change places American educational history into a realistic, modern historical context that recognizes both the importance of collaboration as well as the role of individuals who traditionally have been excluded from our educational narrative. These include women, African Americans, immigrants and working people. At a time when individualism has come to dominate our world and we often celebrate the accomplishments of the great figures of the past and present, we sometimes forget that cooperation, collaboration, and networking have always been at the heart of progress, change and improvement of our social order, our economy, and our educational system.The Arc of Educational Change provides a balanced perspective of American educational history that recognizes both the important role of individuals as well as a diverse set of collaborators who helped promote equity, inclusion, and justice in our schools.

Be bold. Think big. Change Schools. Everyday we're problem solving—but deep down we know the system is no longer working. Do we just keep trying harder, or do we dare to transform how we'do school?'In The Drivers: Transforming Learning for Students, Schools, and Systems, renowned authors Michael Fullan and Joanne Quinn build on their previous books and lay out a complete model for transforming teaching and learning. The goal: making sure students are actually prepared to live and thrive in the complex world around them. Learn to: Orient students, staff, and community around the four drivers: wellbeing and learning, social intelligence, equality investments, systemness Believe that young people can generate more l magic in the world if we enable them Take cues from five school communities who have successfully embarked on system change Lead, develop, and connect with others at different stages of system change Schools are not meant to be solely feeders to MBAs, Ph.Ds, or corporate boardrooms. When we see schools as local hubs of innovation, and model for students what it means to be community-focused, we will renew the relevancy of our most valuable institutions.

This is a book about the education America owes to its children, why its education system is in poor condition, and what might be done to give that system both energy and quality. In diagnosing the current practices and priorities of American education, the book presupposes a collective public interest in creating a well-educated next generation. While focused on public schools, the book addresses the education of all of America's children: What should well-educated future citizens learn in school?

Public education plays a crucial role in crafting a nation's future. In the United States, education reform policy, particularly the reliance on large-scale, standardized testing, is a growing topic of national conversation and concern. An Illusion of Equity: The Legacy of Eugenics in Today's Education demonstrates how centuries of propaganda have led us to accept the idea that test scores indicate something so valuable about human beings that they should be used to organize society. Drawing on decades of experience as an educator, author Wendy Zagray Warren unpacks the origins of this practice, inviting us to probe the ideologies underlying testing procedures and score interpretation and to evaluate the rationale for using test scores as the sole markers for academic achievement. From the beginning, large-scale tests have produced scores divided by race and class. Initially, these results aligned with the eugenic ideology of its creators. Warren shows that while the rhetoric used to justify test-based policy has changed, the model used to produce test scores remains much the same. Therefore, so do the outcomes of test-based policies, which continue to reproduce and reinforce the existing social hierarchy of the United States. The hope of equity lies in educators charting new paths and scholars around the world who are dreaming new educational paradigms into being. Ultimately, Warren invites policymakers, educators, and parents to explore the richness of possibility when education is designed around the belief that every child is worthy of the opportunity to thrive.

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on K–12 education have been pervasive and profound. This engaging book concisely outlines the current crisis in schools in the core areas of student learning, student and teacher mental health, and teacher burnout. Synthesizing original research, David T. Marshall and Tim Pressley offer in-depth descriptions of the disruptions caused by prolonged school closures and remote instruction. They also identify some positive changes, such as increased use of online resources and technology, flexible work models, and greater attention to social and emotional learning. Sharing key findings, concrete examples, and teachers'own voices about what they need to succeed, the book provides clear recommendations for moving schools forward effectively and sustainably.

Despite decades of increased state and federal funding for education, student outcomes have largely deteriorated: according to the 2022 NAEP exam results, reading and math capabilities hit a thirty-year low. The emerging workforce is less prepared to handle the increasingly complex demands of the future, which is likely to accelerate income inequality and stifle our nation's economic and social competitiveness. Presenting the latest research on the economics of K-12 education, this book makes recommendations about specific educational programming that have shown potential in increasing student outcomes for all learners, focusing on human capital and practical recommendations for state and local policy makers and educational leaders.

How can we “fix” our schools? Improve graduation rates in college? What works?These are questions that make the headlines and vex policy makers, practitioners, and educational researchers. While they strive to improve society, there are frequently gulfs of mutual incomprehension among them.Academics, longing for more influence, may wrongly fault irrationality, ideology, or ignorance for the failure of research to inform policy and practice more powerfully. Policy makers and practitioners may doubt that academics can deliver ideas that will reliably yield desirable results. This book bridges the divide. It argues that unrealistic expectations lead to both unproductive research and impossible standards for “evidence-based” policy and practice, and it offers promising ways for evidence to contribute to improvement. It analyzes the utility and limitations of the different research methods that have been applied to policy and practice, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of educational reform strategies. It explains why using evidence for “accountability” often makes things worse rather than better.Paul Lingenfelter offers educational researchers and policy makers a framework for considering such questions as: What problems are important and accessible? What methods will be fruitful? Which help policy makers and practitioners make choices and learn how to improve? What information is relevant? What knowledge is valid and useful? How can policy makers and practitioners establish a more productive division of labor based on their respective capabilities and limitations? He cautions against the illusion that straight-forward scientific approaches and data can be successfully applied to society's most complex problems. While explaining why no single policy or intervention can solve complex problems, he concludes that determination, measurement, analysis, and adaptation based on evidence in specific situations can lead to significant improvement. This positive, even-handed introduction to the use of research for problem-solving concludes by suggesting emerging practices and approaches that can help scholars, practitioners, and policy leaders become more successful in reaching their fundamental goals.

A visionary blueprint for educational reform that envisions school systems as opportunity engines, preparing young citizens for future workplace success, civic engagement, and fulfilling lives. Educating for Purposeful Life documents positive change within the Anaheim Union High School District, whose overarching mission is to prepare high school graduates who possess a clear sense of purpose and the capacity to achieve their goals. Superintendent Michael Matsuda and education consultant David Brazer lay out the district's innovative approaches to organizing, leading, teaching, and learning. They demonstrate how education policy, organization theory, and external partnerships work together within this grades 7–12 district to scaffold student success, resulting in greater high school graduation rates and four-year college matriculation and persistence rates. A rousing account of effective school reform, this work illuminates the district's Career Preparedness Systems Framework, which integrates affective and cognitive development opportunities, trade and professional development programs, and community engagement efforts. Matsuda and Brazer show how this framework, combined with a strengths-based approach that recognizes and affirms students'individual life experiences, helps meet the educational needs of all students, including those from traditionally underserved populations. Presenting secondary education as a means to support democracy, address employability gaps, and elevate student voice and purpose, this thought-provoking work provides ample ideas for how other districts might engage in educating for purposeful life.

⭑ PROSE Award Finalist An invigorating work that identifies obstructions to transformative change in higher education and offers paths to break through. In “Whatever It Is, I'm Against It,” president emeritus of Macalester College Brian Rosenberg draws on decades of higher education experience to expose the entrenched structures, practices, and cultures that inhibit meaningful postsecondary reform, even as institutions face serious challenges to their financial and educational models. A lively insider's account, the book pinpoints factors that hinder the ability of U.S. colleges and universities to be creative and entrepreneurial amid calls to improve affordability, access, and equity for students. Through pithy personal stories of divisive town hall meetings, multiyear college governance battles, and attempts at curricular reform, Rosenberg illustrates internal and external dynamics that impede institutional evolution. Pressures such as declining enrollment, escalating costs, and an oversupply of PhDs in academia have long signaled a grave need for reform within a profession that, as Rosenberg ruefully acknowledges, lacks organizational flexibility, depends greatly on reputation and ranking, and retains traditions, from the academic calendar to grading systems, that have remained essentially the same for decades. Rosenberg looks outside the U.S. system to find possible antidotes in innovative higher education models such as student-centered and experiential learning approaches. This thought-provoking work offers ample evidence for presidents, chancellors, deans, provosts, and faculty to consider as they plan their missions to achieve institutional transformation.

A call to action for school and community leaders to reframe educational institutions as open systems that are adaptable and responsive to the needs of students, families, and communities. Landon Mascareñaz and Doannie Tran propose that, even as events of this decade have exposed stress points in existing top-down, closed systems within education and other public institutions, they have also created prime opportunities to rethink and redesign those systems in ways that encourage civic participation and invigorate local democracy. In The Open System, Mascareñaz and Tran argue for a critical revitalization of public education centered in openness, an organization design concept in which an entity receives, considers, and acts on input from the community it serves. As they demonstrate, open education policy improves information flow, increasing opportunity, bolstering public trust, and making room for cocreation and coproduction driven by community partnerships and family engagement. Based on their groundbreaking work with educational coalitions such as the Kentucky Coalition for Advancing Education and Colorado's Homegrown Talent Initiative, Mascareñaz and Tran introduce six key liberatory moves that can bring about open system transformation. They highlight real-life examples of the types of incremental, specific, and discrete projects that leaders can use to create openness in educational systems at the school, district, and state levels, providing a blueprint for changemaking.

Explore how to provide equitable literacy instruction and assessment so every student masters essential standards. The authors help K–6 educators navigate reading and writing instruction through the lens of Professional Learning Communities at Work®. Learn strategies for utilizing data as collaborative teams to answer the four critical questions of learning, and access templates and protocols to improve literacy for all. This book will help K–6 teachers and reading specialists: Analyze and improve their current literacy practices, curriculum, and instructional focus within the context of a PLC at Work Create or curate common formative team literacy assessments for learning targets Structure a supportive master schedule that allows for daily team collaboration and systemwide response Understand the components of a comprehensive literacy instructional block Create progress-monitoring tools and focused reading interventions and extensions Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Take Collective Responsibility and Work Interdependently Chapter 2: Ensure a Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum Chapter 3: Assess and Monitor Student Reading Growth With Ongoing Assessment Chapter 4: Measure Evidence of Individual and Collective Teacher Practice Effectiveness Chapter 5: Support Systematically With Targeted Acceleration, Interventions, and Extensions Afterword: TEAMS Can Transform Literacy Outcomes for Students Appendix A: TEAMS Process Protocols Appendix B: TEAMS Templates References and Resources Index

An astute assessment of the educational leadership skills and leadership development practices that align with deeper learning in K–12 schools. Preparing Leaders for Deeper Learning spotlights educational leaders as key actors in the urgent task of readying students for college, careers, and citizenship in an evolving world. Marjorie Wechsler and Steven Wojcikiewicz argue that, in response to new understandings of learning and development and emerging societal needs, K–12 school leaders must be able to shift institutions toward deeper learning models, in which collaboration, critical thinking, and project-based learning are fundamental concepts. Through detailed case studies, Wechsler and Wojcikiewicz demonstrate how educational leadership development programs can prepare principals to guide their schools, teachers, and students toward deeper learning and equity. They highlight the approaches of five exemplary leadership preparation programs—the University of Illinois at Chicago, Long Beach Unified School District, Arkansas Leadership Academy, National Institute for School Leadership, and the University of California, Berkeley—which together serve educational leaders at all career levels, from initial training for candidates through in-service professional development for seasoned school principals. They identify school structures and classroom practices that enable these programs to confer the skill set needed for deeper learning leadership, and they describe the education policy priorities that can support school leaders in acquiring these necessary skills. This book shows that targeted leadership development is a vital component of transforming schools to create deeper learning opportunities for all students.

Through this book, we seek to describe improvement science in action for educators, schools, districts, universities, and communities. This book is a venue for improvement research in education focused on the application of improvement science in educational settings. Improvement science requires extensive engagement in rigorous work to implement sustainable change at a systemic level. As the editors of this volume for the Leadership in School Improvement SIG book series, we hope that these chapters, written by researchers, practitioners, and leaders engaged in improvement science will help others begin their own improvement processes to achieve desired, equitable, and sustainable results for student success. ENDORSEMENTS:'Continuous Improvement: A Leadership Process for School Improvement brings together an impressive group of fieldleading improvement scholars, with deep connections to educational practice, to provide a powerful vision for what equity-centered improvement science looks like in action. The stories of improvement, partnership, and critical enabling conditions provide theoretically sound and practically useful guidance for anyone seeking to transform education organizations in service of more equitable learning opportunities for students.'— Jennifer Lin Russell, Vanderbilt Peabody College'This is a moment of empowerment in education, with movements for social justice and continuous improvement providing motivations and methods to interrogate, disrupt, and rebuild education systems to support the holistic development of all students. This essential book provides compelling accounts of what it looks like -- and what is possible -- when educational professionals, researchers, and other stakeholders come together to seize this moment.'— Donald Peurach, University of Michigan's School of Education and Carnegie Foundation

Educational Folly: Teacher Well-Being and the Chaos of American Schooling, offers a comprehensive critique of educational reforms that have eroded the teacher's position. This leaves teachers with psychological scars – scars which are fueling the recent exodus from teaching. Gonsalves lays out a new vision for the future of education reform. This model centers around justice, community, and professionalism to return the teacher to the rightful head of the classroom and to restore dignity and progress to all of America's schools.

Decades of research clearly show what works in schools, yet a huge gap persists between those instructional best practices and what is widely taught—and not taught—in classrooms today.In Results Now 2.0, Mike Schmoker expands on his bestselling book and offers a broader, deeper analysis of the entire K–12 education system and how it can improve. He describes a systemic buffer of policies, pedagogy, and initiatives that prevents everyone—teachers, students, and parents—from understanding our collective failure to align instruction with evidence of what works.We need to bridge the gap between proven practice and common practice. By focusing on the fundamental elements of curriculum, literacy, and effective instruction, Schmoker offers hope for the future. He describes schools that have successfully used evidence and strategic practice to remove the buffer, and he shows how schools can improve—quickly.This book is a call for both educators and the public to demand transparency and fidelity to the most effective actions that transform our schools and help us see results now.

The book is both a call to action and a how-to guide to effective teaching. It is written in a readable, accessible style, yet it is supported by a wealth of knowledge and experience. The intended audience is aspiring and current secondary school teachers and administrators, curriculum directors, and college education professors, as well as lay people interested in practical progressive education. This book offers dozens of strategies and original ideas to enhance teaching all manner of students in all kinds of secondary schools.

The remote work revolution presents a unique opportunity for higher education institutions to reinvent themselves and become talent magnets.In Knowledge Towns, David J. Staley and Dominic D. J. Endicott argue that the location of a college or university is a necessary piece of any region's effort to attract remote knowledge workers and accelerate economic development and creative placemaking. Just as every town expects a church, bank branch, post office, and coffeehouse, Staley and Endicott write, we will see a decentralized network of institutions of higher education flourish, acting as cornerstones for the post-pandemic rebuilding of our society and economy. In calling for a'college in any town,'they are not simply proposing placing a traditional college within a town or city, but envisioning instead a particular kind of higher education institution called a'knowledge enterprise.'In addition to providing the services of a traditional college, a knowledge enterprise acts as a talent magnet, attracting workers looking to move to cheaper and more attractive destinations.With the post-COVID-19 shift to more remote work, and millions of people moving to more affordable and livable cities, a place that wants to attract talent will require a thriving academic environment. This represents a new opportunity for'town and gown'to create collaborative communities. The pandemic has accelerated existing trends that put at risk the viability of many colleges and universities, as well as that of many towns and cities. The talent magnet strategy outlined in this book offers colleges and towns a plan of action for regeneration.

The Gatekeepers is a comprehensive review of many parts of a school system that resist change. For all stakeholders to embrace improvement, they need to know what habits, practices and indifference act as barriers to growth and change. This book reveals insiders insights into what gates exist, how to navigate around them, and why it is important to risk new ways of doing school.