How The Other Half Learns


Book Description

An inside look at America's most controversial charter schools, and the moral and political questions around public education and school choice. The promise of public education is excellence for all. But that promise has seldom been kept for low-income children of color in America. In How the Other Half Learns, teacher and education journalist Robert Pondiscio focuses on Success Academy, the network of controversial charter schools in New York City founded by Eva Moskowitz, who has created something unprecedented in American education: a way for large numbers of engaged and ambitious low-income families of color to get an education for their children that equals and even exceeds what wealthy families take for granted. Her results are astonishing, her methods unorthodox. Decades of well-intended efforts to improve our schools and close the "achievement gap" have set equity and excellence at war with each other: If you are wealthy, with the means to pay private school tuition or move to an affluent community, you can get your child into an excellent school. But if you are poor and black or brown, you have to settle for "equity" and a lecture--about fairness. About the need to be patient. And about how school choice for you only damages public schools for everyone else. Thousands of parents have chosen Success Academy, and thousands more sit on waiting lists to get in. But Moskowitz herself admits Success Academy "is not for everyone," and this raises uncomfortable questions we'd rather not ask, let alone answer: What if the price of giving a first-rate education to children least likely to receive it means acknowledging that you can't do it for everyone? What if some problems are just too hard for schools alone to solve?




Supporting Behavior for School Success


Book Description

Designed for busy teachers and other school-based professionals, this book presents step-by-step guidelines for implementing seven highly effective strategies to improve classroom management and instructional delivery. These key low-intensity strategies are grounded in the principles of positive behavior intervention and support (PBIS), and are easy to integrate into routine teaching practice. Chapters discuss exactly how to use each strategy to decrease disruptive behavior and enhance student engagement and achievement. Checklists for success are provided, together with concise reviews of the evidence base and ways to measure outcomes. Illustrative case examples span the full K-12 grade range. Reproducible intervention tools can be downloaded and printed in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size. See also Managing Challenging Behaviors in Schools, by Kathleen Lynn Lane et al., which shows how these key strategies fit into a broader framework of prevention and intervention.




The Children's Book of Success at School


Book Description

Help your children to discover what they need to discover and understand what they need to know about starting and getting on well at school. Great re-usable stickers bring extra fun to every topic and encourage children to look at the pictures carefully, learn from the characters and see how important success is in their own lives. Use the gold stickers to praise and encourage your child's progress, and the special wipe-clean reward chart to record successes.




Defining Student Success


Book Description

The key to success, our culture tells us, is a combination of talent and hard work. Why then, do high schools that supposedly subscribe to this view send students to college at such dramatically different rates? Why do students from one school succeed while students from another struggle? To the usual answer—an imbalance in resources—this book adds a far more subtle and complicated explanation. Defining Student Success shows how different schools foster dissimilar and sometimes conflicting ideas about what it takes to succeed—ideas that do more to preserve the status quo than to promote upward mobility. Lisa Nunn’s study of three public high schools reveals how students’ beliefs about their own success are shaped by their particular school environment and reinforced by curriculum and teaching practices. While American culture broadly defines success as a product of hard work or talent (at school, intelligence is the talent that matters most), Nunn shows that each school refines and adapts this American cultural wisdom in its own distinct way—reflecting the sensibilities and concerns of the people who inhabit each school. While one school fosters the belief that effort is all it takes to succeed, another fosters the belief that hard work will only get you so far because you have to be smart enough to master course concepts. Ultimately, Nunn argues that these school-level adaptations of cultural ideas about success become invisible advantages and disadvantages for students’ college-going futures. Some schools’ definitions of success match seamlessly with elite college admissions’ definition of the ideal college applicant, while others more closely align with the expectations of middle or low-tier institutions of higher education. With its insights into the transmission of ideas of success from society to school to student, this provocative work should prompt a reevaluation of the culture of secondary education. Only with a thorough understanding of this process will we ever find more consistent means of inculcating success, by any measure.




How to Succeed at School


Book Description

This book shines a light on the best research into learning and the brain development that makes it all possible. Written by two distinguished education journalists, it provides an invaluable guide to the latest information for teachers and parents seeking to help children to make the best use of their potential and steer a true course through an often confused, noisy and crowded learning landscape where ideas compete and nothing can seem clear. Summarising the most up to date and significant research in a jargon-free and understandable way, this book provides readers with simple and clear access to knowledge and information about what really helps children learn and flourish. Whether you’re a teacher who wants to encourage the right kind of parental support or a parent who wants to do the best for your child, this is an essential read. Drawing on expert analysis, interviews and example studies, the chapters tackle common misconceptions and myths, and explore crucial topics including: The use of neuroscience in education; The role of parents and how all parents can help their children learn; What works in the classroom and the best ways of teaching a child. The first of its kind, this seminal text is a unique resource for parents, carers, primary and secondary teachers, student teachers, policymakers and anyone interested in the development of children and how they learn.




Success in School


Book Description

This book describes who anyone can help children to learn, either in school or during homework. It sets the record straight on nine commonly held beliefs about learning. Most adults, even those in education, assume at least one of these myths is true. Discovering the facts behind these myths can make teaching and learning more enjoyable and successful. Simple and effective ways to help kids concentrate on learning are explained, requiring no extra time or money. In fact they usually make life easier for both the adult and child.




Next Level Student Success


Book Description

This book is a student's guide to achieving success in school and life. A wealth of knowledge that every principal, teacher, professor, counselor, parent, and student life director would want their students to read. If you're someone that would like to take your schooling and your personal life to the Next Level, then this is the book for you.In Next Level Student Success, Dennard Mitchell shares practical, actionable tips that students can implement immediately to achieve success. If you want stronger personal relationships, to improve academically, become an effective student leader, or increase your self-belief, this book will challenge you to do exactly that and more. Get ready for Next Level Student Success!




Trusting Teachers with School Success


Book Description

Lately, our nation's strategy for improving our schools is mostly limited to "getting tough" with teachers. Blaming teachers for poor outcomes, we spend almost all of our energy trying to control teachers' behavior and school operations. But what if all of this is exactly the opposite of what is needed? What if teachers are the answer and not the problem? What if trusting teachers, and not controlling them, is the key to school success? Examining the experiences of teachers who are already trusted to call the shots, this book answers: What would teachers do if they had the autonomy not just to make classroom decisions, but to collectively--with their colleagues--make the decisions influencing whole school success? Decisions such as school curriculum, how to allocate the school budget, and whom to hire. Teachers with decision-making authority create the schools that many of us profess to want. They individualize learning. Their students are active (not passive) learners who gain academic and life skills. The teachers create school cultures that are the same as those in high-performing organizations. They accept accountability and innovate, and make efficient use of resources. These promising results suggest: it's time to trust teachers.




Skills for School Success


Book Description

Grade level: 3, e, p, t.




School Public Relations for Student Success


Book Description

"Everything you need to succeed with parents, community leaders, employees, and more can be found in this book. Moore′s lifetime experience comes through with clear, no-nonsense ideas and insights that those working in schools can put to work right away." —William J. Banach, CEO Banach, Banach & Cassidy An on-the-job public relations and communications partner for everyone working in schools! As school public relations efforts play an increasingly vital role in helping students achieve and schools succeed, the communications expectations placed on school leaders at all levels continue to soar. Now this field-based reference offers educational leaders practical advice and specific tips for meeting the tough new communication demands they face daily. Ideal for both long-range planning and day-to-day basics, this guide helps leaders define and organize their school′s PR plan. The book offers step-by-step guidance on creating and applying communication tactics that work—from how to generate community support to managing crises, stopping rumors, handling media inquiries, dealing with critics, and much more. Emphasizing the PR responsibilities of all school employees, the author: Outlines the key components of successful communications programs Covers how to set reasonable expectations for communications efforts Provides questions for assessing PR needs, guidelines for judging what′s working and what′s not, and an abundance of checklists Offers interview advice from professionals in the field Educational leaders will consult this comprehensive resource again and again as they plan and implement public relations activities to support student and school success!