Americans have been trying to redesign the American high school since it was first invented. One of the latest approaches--funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation--is to find inventive high school designs that work well in one location and can be replicated in others. The authors of this book followed a design team from Big Picture…

Featuring contributions from a unique mix of authors--classroom teachers, teacher educators, and children's book authors--this volume explores the value of stories in promoting children's language and literacy learning. Major sections cover the most fundamental and critical foundations for language and literacy growth--including first language…

In this timely volume, international scholars examine how multilingual schooling is handled in schools across the world with a series of case studies from South Africa, Nigeria, Germany, Colombia, Slovakia, New Zealand, and Taiwan. Presenting new contributions arising from the varied contexts of multilingualism today, this collection urges…

The "BAS for Family Child Care" is the first valid and reliable tool for measuring and improving the overall quality of business and professional practices in family child care settings. It is applicable for multiple uses, including program self-improvement, technical assistance and monitoring, training, research and evaluation, and public…

This book shows how school improvement efforts are often undermined by the changing conditions around schools, as well as by some of the very policies and programs designed to help them make improvements. Hatch argues that schools cannot wait around for conditions to improve or for policymakers to figure out how to provide the "right" support.…

How has the teaching of writing changed in the 21st century? In this innovative guide, real teachers share their stories, successful practices, and vivid examples of their students' creative and expository writing from online and multimedia projects, such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, electronic poetry, and more. The book also addresses assessment:…

"On Teacher Inquiry" could be read as an answer to the question, "Teacher Research: What's in it for the students?" This new volume in the "NCRLL Collection" addresses the relationships among teacher research, teacher practice, and student learning. The authors observe, analyze, raise questions, design methodologies, and build relationships with…

While reformers and policymakers focus on achievement gaps, testing, and accountability, millions of students mentally and emotionally disengage from learning and many gifted teachers leave the field. Ironically, today's schooling is damaging the single most essential component to education--the joy of learning. How do we recognize the "wounds"…

This groundbreaking work examines teacher quality, work norms, and professional learning opportunities, using data from 15 countries. The authors compare and contrast the United States with two high-achieving countries--Japan and Australia--that have implemented very different approaches to improving teacher quality. Drawing on both large…

This important new work from Rebell and Wolff, authors of the groundbreaking volume "Moving Every Child Ahead: From NCLB Hype to Meaningful Educational Opportunity", brings together the nation's leading researchers and thinkers in the field of educational equity to provide a range of provocative critiques that go well beyond what has already been…

In this provocative volume, the authors argue that public education is a central part of American civil religion and, thus, gives us an unquestioning faith in the capacity of education to solve all of our social, economic, and political problems. The book traces the development of America's faith in public education from before the Civil War up to…

In this long-awaited sequel to "Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge", two leaders in the field of practitioner research offer a radically different view of the relationship of knowledge and practice and of the role of practitioners in educational change. In their new book, the authors put forward the notion of inquiry as stance as a…

George Theoharis draws on the experiences and words of successful public school principals committed to advancing equity, social justice, and school reform to show why social justice leadership is needed and how it can be effective. Although facing tremendous barriers, these principals made important strides toward closing the achievement gap in…

This book shares the lessons learned by a large community of educational researchers and science teachers as they designed, developed, and investigated a new technology-enhanced learning environment known as WISE: The Web-Based Inquiry Science Environment. WISE offers a collection of free, customizable curriculum projects on topics central to the…

In her new book, bestselling author Cynthia Ballenger explores the intellectual strengths of students that teachers find "puzzling"--poor, urban, immigrant, or bilingual children who do not traditionally excel in school. Ballenger challenges the assumption that these children--whose families in many cases have less formal education, read fewer…