Race, Class, and Power in School Restructuring


Book Description

Explores the intersection of two central issues in American education today: school reform through restructuring and alienation from school of many children of color. A tough look at the impact of teachers' and administrators' beliefs and practices.




Creating School Partnerships that Work


Book Description

THIS IS A UNIQUE BOOK. IF YOU CARE ABOUT SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLING AND THE WAY IN WHICH PARTNERSHIPS MAY HELP TO STRENGTHEN AND IMPROVE THEM AND THE INSTITUTIONS THAT PARTNER WITH THEM, YOU SHOULD READ IT! School partnerships have a long history in the United States. The inception of public schooling was a type of partnership with the community. The concept of local school boards and local control was integral to the establishment of schools and the idea that public education was a public good has deep roots in the country. Partnerships denote relationships which are mutually beneficial to the parties involved and which result in joint benefits for those who create and engage in them. The partnerships presented in this book provide ample evidence of the value and benefits of these arrangements. The book contains stories and research about school partnerships from a variety of groups and perspectives, which are focused upon multiple issues within educational institutions and communities within the United States. The final chapter, presents an analysis across all the partnerships to identify the elements that fostered and hindered their success and the primary lessons learned. This analysis should provide meaningful information for those engaged in developing and operating similar partnerships or those involved in conducting research on or about them. Although the cases presented in this book occur within the United States, the findings may also have relevance for similar initiatives in other countries. Praise for Creating School Partnerships that Work: A Guide for Practice and Research: Kudos to Dana Griggs and Frances Kochan for compiling the rich accountings of eight different school partnerships all in one place. Readers will learn a great deal from both the individual accountings of a broad array of partnerships as well as the collective analysis of the partnerships and lessons learned across them. Creating School Partnerships that Work:A Guide for Research and Practice is a must-read book for anyone who ever has been, is, or desires to be involved in any type of school partnership. Nancy Fichtman Dana, Professor, School of Teaching and Learning University of Florida, Gainesville Creating School Partnerships that Work: A Guide for Research and Practice is a must read for scholars, researchers, practitioners, and community members seeking to identify elements of successful school partnerships that foster students' academic and personal successes. This edited volume shares stakeholders' perspectives on multi-dimensional school partnerships, which have successfully led to sustained collaborations across diverse purposes that are mutually beneficial for all groups. The usefulness of the content analysis presented in the final chapter, which identifies elements both fostering and hindering partnerships with recommendations, cannot be overstated. Mary Barbara Trube, Professor Emerita, Ohio University-Chillicothe Contributing Faculty & Dissertation Mentor, Walden University Early Childhood Education Adjunct Faculty, Florida SouthWestern State College Mentor & Early Childhood Consultant, ILEAD Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University




Building School-Community Partnerships


Book Description

This current era of high stakes testing, accountability, and shrinking educational budgets demands that schools seek bold and innovative ways to build strong learning environments for all students. Community involvement is a powerful tool in generating resources that are essential for educational excellence. Building School-Community Partnerships: Collaboration for Student Success emphasizes the importance of community involvement for effective school functioning, student support and well-being, and community health and development. This sharp, insightful book serves as an excellent resource for educators seeking to establish school-community partnerships to achieve goals for their schools and the students, families, and communities they serve. Schools can collaborate with a wide variety of community partners to obtain the resources they need to achieve important goals for students’ learning. Some of these partners may include: - Businesses and corporations - Universities and other institutions of higher learning - National and local volunteer organizations - Social service agencies and health partners - Faith-based organizations and institutions Work successfully with community partners to improve school programs and curricula, strengthen families, and expand your students’ learning experiences!




Restructuring Schools for Collaboration


Book Description

This book provides a more comprehensive discussion of collaborative school efforts than any other single source currently available. Specifically, multiple disciplinary perspectives are presented, addressing the complexity or "promises and pitfalls" of school collaboration efforts. The book is organized in terms of major considerations in school collaboration initiatives—the organizational structure; the change process; inter-agency and intra-school collaborative efforts; and implications for instruction, leadership, and leadership preparation. Also, the book informs the design of educator preparation programs emphasizing collaborative schools and cross-disciplinary teaching. The chapters address many issues regarding school collaboration, such as which organizational structures will enhance collaborative efforts; which change processes are important in building school collaboration; the costs (in effort, energy, time, or other resources) of collaborating with other external agencies; how teachers' work can be redesigned to enhance collaboration between teachers and the anticipated outcomes for teachers and students; how educators can overcome their separate role socializations to build collaborative work relationships within schools; and the implications of school collaboration for teaching and learning, school leadership, and leadership preparation. The closing chapter offers five synthesizing issues or dilemmas for school collaboration.




School, Family, and Community Partnerships


Book Description

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.




Paths to Partnership


Book Description

As human needs have escalated in recent years, the mismatch between these needs and the restrictive, categorical definition of human services has become strikingly clear. In response, educators, nurses, social workers, public health workers, and other professionals have been actively exploring ways to collaborate with one another, and otherwise integrate their efforts. The movement towards collaboration among human services professionals begs an important questions: how do we prepare professionals for such work? A growing number of universities are now trying to develop answers, and their answers increasingly emphasize interprofessional education, that is, programs that join the efforts of departments and training courses which have traditionally been separate. Furthermore, these programs tend to be based in community settings, and actively involved community members (practitioners, non-professional residents) as partners in the training process. In constructing such joint programs (or revisingcurrent programs within each profession to make them more interprofessional and community-based), educators and program designers are encountering a fascinating set of challenges as they construct interdisciplinary curricula, create learning experiences that necessitate real collaboration, and develop relationships with communities. Preparing to Collaborate explores the nature of these challenges and how they can be approached. The authors -- scholars and educators in five professional domains (education, nursing, social work, public health, and public policy and management) -- joined forces in a five-year developmental effort at the University of Washington (UW) to create sustainablepartnerships between university and community which will help newly entering professionals in the human services collaborate effectively with each other and with community members. One of the most advanced experiments of its kind in




New Directions in Mentoring


Book Description

Creates a new model of mentoring where guided, flexible structures unleash the creative capacity of the group. Approaches include the use of lifelong mentoring, professional peer networking and the creative use of collaborative teams.




Librarians and Educators Collaborating for Success


Book Description

The first in the IASL-Libraries Unlimited partnership series, this book features contributions written by authors from around the world about their effective collaboration experiences. Collaboration between teachers and school librarians is a topic that is often discussed in the quest for educational excellence, but the international perspective is something that is rarely explored. This text documents the collaboration endeavors in international school libraries and—drawing upon research and direct experience—demonstrates effective collaboration experiences in a range of countries. It also features selected brief case studies as well as several original essays on the topic of collaboration between teachers and teacher librarians in curriculum planning. The result of a joint effort between Libraries Unlimited and the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL), this book shows how collaboration with teachers looks in the international arena. It addresses topics such as collaborating for success with student searching, the roles of librarians and teachers in the research process, principal involvement, information literacy, inquiry-based learning, use of digital resources, models of collaboration for diversity, and evaluation of collaboration. Additionally, the current research findings presented will offer readers new insights into their profession.




Restructuring for Caring and Effective Education


Book Description

Reflecting the sweeping, extensive changes in special and general education, this book explores the foundations and evolution of inclusive education in the last decade -- a prerequisite for administrators implementing inclusion in their schools.




School-Based Deliberative Partnership as a Platform for Teacher Professionalization and Curriculum Innovation


Book Description

Using cutting-edge and frontline research relating to present day problems in educational systems, this volume provides a critical discussion about political alternatives in education to neoliberalism. Based on Engeström’s Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), a theory that has potential for new areas of educational research, this book explores a conceptual framework of curriculum innovation in school practice that focuses on processes of mutual meaning-making as boundary crossing between partners from different communities. Focusing on active professionalization and continuing professional learning of teachers as subjects, agents, extended professionals and curriculum makers in school-based deliberative partnerships with one another and with other educational partners inside and outside school, this volume is divided into eight accessible chapters and covers topics such as political and curricular considerations about educational change, deliberative partnership as a new way for reform, prospects for an innovative curriculum process and putting into action deliberative partnership-based curricular innovation. This volume is the perfect addition for teachers, teacher educators, researchers and practitioners who are looking to explore beyond the viewpoint that teachers operate in singular communities and the potential and possibility of an alternative framework for teacher learning in the future.