San Antonio College Library

Examines the influence of changing school conditions and policies on improvement efforts and offers suggestions on getting resources, managing demands, and building capacity.

"Renewing America's Schools raises the most fundamental questions about the purpose of public education, the role of schools, and the needed school-based application to fulfill the promise of education in a democratic society. This is a book that shows teachers, principals, students, parents, central office personnel, school boards, and community members exactly what they need to do to create schools that are purposeful, moral, and successful places....

Explains the strategies John Stanford used while he was superintendent of Seattle public schools to improve test scores, lessen violence, and increase student/teacher morale.

In this book takes a look at school reform since the launch of Sputnik. The authors scrutinize school reform events, proposals, and policies from the last 60 years through the lens of critical social theory and examine the ongoing tensions between the need to keep a vibrant unitary system of public education and the ongoing assault by corporate and elite interests in creating a dual system. Some of events, proposals, and policies critiqued include...

"This text offers an inside look at the hidden dimensions of teaching. Sometimes controversial, always poignant, the book examines highly debated issues fundamental to a free and open society. School reform is at a critical juncture; the portrait of the profession revealed here serves as a catalyst for change. Chapters discuss such timely and relevant topics as the preparation of teachers past and present, the daily work of teachers, and the influence...

"Children enter the world curiously hard-wired for creativity and imagination. After a few short years of school, something drastically changes for them. Why? There is an unmistakable and deliberate attempt to control the learning of young people who find themselves sitting in our schools. The industrial model for schooling has taken its toll and victims without remorse. It programs curious young minds to become helpless, dependent, and compliant....

"Anabel Garza: No school board would have put her forward as a model principal. Pregnant and alone at sixteen, widowed by twenty five, Anabel got along teaching English to Mexican immigrants, raising her son and taking night school classes. But then no model candidate would have taken the job at John H. Reagan High School. Once known to sports fans across Texas as the great champion Big Blue, Reagan was collapsing. The kids were failing the standardized...

Argues against the "tougher standards" rhetoric and the current practice of teaching to standardized tests in favor of helping students become more critical, creative thinkers.

Innovation expert Ted Dintersmith took a trip across America, visiting all fifty states in a single school year. He originally set out to raise awareness about the urgent need to reimagine education to prepare students for a world marked by innovation -- but America's teachers one-upped him. All across the country, he met teachers in ordinary settings doing extraordinary things, creating innovative classrooms where children learn deeply and joyously...

"The motives for manufacturing myths are not so much the theme of this book as are exposing and dispelling widespread current practices as myths. Frase and Streshly expose the myths that retard educational improvement and suggest reforms that would cost the taxpayer nothing."--Jacket.