The Cage-Busting Teacher adopts the logic of Cage-Busting Leadership and applies it to the unique challenges and opportunities of classroom teachers. Detailed, accessible, and thoroughly engaging, it uncovers the many ways in which teachers can break out of familiar constraints in order to influence school and classroom practice, education policy, and school reform. “Cage-busting is concrete, precise, andpractical,” writes Frede...

Almost everyone agrees that America's urban schools are a mess. But while this agreement has fostered widespread support for aggressive reform, Frederick Hess argues that much of what ails urban education is actually the result of continuous or fragmentary reform. Hess explains that political incentives drive school superintendents to promote reforms--to demonstrate that they are ""making a difference."" Superintendents have to do this quickly, both because their tenure is usually three ye...

"By deconstructing learning science and making the connection to technology, Hess and Saxberg have outlined key strategies for school leaders as they work to transform traditional practices in schools. Whether it is whole-school reform or targeted interventions, principals will be motivated to rethink or‘re-engineer’ the use of technology to optimize teaching and learning."—Gail Connelly, Executive DirectorNational Association of Elementary School Principals

What if it's the system that's the problem? What if the key to breakthrough school improvement is not mandating new solutions built on an elusive combination of the right standards, pedagogy, and assessments but removing entrenched bureaucratic barriers and rethinking restrictive norms and routines? What if we were free to start from scratch? This is the greenfield reform strategy: Create an environment that invites new solutions to surface and provide the infrastructure necessary for them...

In The Great School Rethink, education policy sentinel Frederick M. Hess offers a pithy and perceptive appraisal of American schooling and finds, in the uncertain period following pandemic disruption, an ideal moment to reimagine US education. Now is the time, he asserts, to ask hard questions about how schools use time and talent, how they work with parents, what they do with digital tools, and how they meet the needs of their communities.As Hess explains, to rethink is t...

At a time of bitter national polarization, there is a critical need for leaders who can help us better communicate with one another. In A Search for Common Ground, Rick Hess and Pedro Noguera, who have often fallen on opposing sides of the ideological aisle over the past couple of decades, candidly talk through their differences on some of the toughest issues in K–12 education today—from school choice to testing to diversity to privatization. They offer a sharp, honest debate that...

The Future of Educational Entrepreneurship examines the challenge of creating innovative and productive entrepreneurial activity in American education.In the course of exploring these challenges, the book considers a number of crucial issues and circumstances: existing “barriers to entry” that prohibit or obstruct entrepreneurial efforts; the availability—and frequent lack—of venture capital for fueling entrepreneurial activities; the effort to sponsor and create a suffici...

School choice has been central to American education policy debate for a quarter-century. But throughout, school choice has been just that—school choice. In a potentially profound development, Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) reimagine parent choice in ways that may upend many assumptions that have framed issues of school choice in the past. ESAs offer something wholly new, allowing parents to customize their child’s education by stitching together traditional schools and different educat...

Simultaneous pressures to reduce costs and increase student achievement have never been greater than they are today. Not only is cost-cutting essential in this era of tightened resources, argue Hess and Osberg, but eliminating inefficient spending is critical for freeing up resources to drive school reform.Stretching the School Dollar book brings together a dynamic group of authors—scholars, consultants, journalists, and entrepreneurs—who offer fresh insig...

In Educational Entrepreneurship Today, Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane assemble a diverse lineup of high-profile contributors to examine the contexts in which new initiatives in education are taking shape. They inquire into the impact of entrepreneurship on the larger field—including the development and deployment of new technologies—and analyze the incentives, barriers, opportunities, and tensions that support or constrain innovation.Over the past decade, entrepr...

"By nearly every measure, Americans are less engaged in their communities and political activity than generations past.” So write the editors of this volume, who survey the current practices and history of citizenship education in the United States.They argue that the current period of “creative destruction”—when schools are closing and opening in response to reform mandates—is an ideal time to take an in-depth look at how successful strategies and programs promote...

Ten brilliant approaches that are disrupting US education and actionable advice for their broader implementation