" City Kids, City Teachers has the potential to create genuine change in the learning, teaching, and administration of urban public schools." — Library JournalIn more than twenty-five provocative selections, an all-star cast of educators and writers explores the surprising realities of city classrooms from kindergarten through high school. Contributors including Gloria Ladson-Billings, Lisa Delpit, June Jordan, Lewis H. Lapham, Audre Lorde, and De...

How do teachers and schools create meaningful learning experiences for students with diverse skills, abilities, and cultures? How can teachers authentically assess the learning of their students and build on their strengths and interests in ways that enrich the larger community? How can schools be turned into places where everyone is learning from each other? These are the big questions that guide the work of teachers at the well-known Mission Hill School in Boston and that are addressed i...

The collection of lectures and publications from the Schumacher Center for a New Economics represents some of the foremost voices on a new economics.Deborah Meier argues that at the heart of civic life are responsible relationships; we learn by the company we keep. She goes on to contend that our system of large schools tends to discourage responsible interactions by their very scale. Not content to just criticize, she outlines the steps she and her colleagues have taken to shape s...

A challenge to narrow, profit-driven conceptions of school success and an argument for protecting public education to ensure that all students become competent citizens in a vibrant democracyIn These Schools Belong to You and Me, MacArthur award–winning educator, reformer, and author Deborah Meier draws on her fifty-plus years of experience to argue that the purpose of universal education is to provide young people with an “apprenticeship for citizenship i...

On these pages is a call to action for teachers who have been shackled by the self-serving motives of agenda driven politicians. Here we present a new innovative process designed to prepare children to be productive members of their community. Students are empowered to take charge of their educational lives where thinking is valued above obedience, and their parents are respected as full partners in the process.The greatest challenge to educators in this decade is to prepare childr...

Signed into law in 2002, the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) promised to revolutionize American public education. Originally supported by a bipartisan coalition, it purports to improve public schools by enforcing a system of standards and accountability through high-stakes testing. Many people supported it originally, despite doubts, because of its promise especially to improve the way schools serve poor children. By making federal funding contingent on accepting a system of tests ...

The authors of this timely book argue that a fundamentally complex problem—how to assess the knowledge of a child—cannot be reduced to a simple test score. Beyond Testing describes seven forms of assessment that are more effective than standardized test results: (1) student self-assessments, (2) direct teacher observations of students and their work, (3) descriptive reviews of the child, (4) reading and math interviews with children, (5) portfolios and public defense o...

In this important manifesto, famed education reformer Ted Sizer examines 15 key issues with our current High School system, and shows what can be done to address each. Issue One: The Problem Issue Two: Growing Up AmericanIssue Three: Learning Issue Four: DifferencesIssue Five: The Language of SchoolingIssue Six: TimeIssue Seven: Space and CostsIssue Eight: CoursesIssue Nine: TechnologyIssue Ten: PedagogyIssue Eleven: TestingIssue Twelve: ChoiceIssue Thirteen: FaithIssue Fourteen: MoralityI...

A challenge to narrow, profit-driven conceptions of school success and an argument for protecting public education to ensure that all students become competent citizens in a vibrant democracyIn These Schools Belong to You and Me, MacArthur award–winning educator, reformer, and author Deborah Meier draws on her fifty-plus years of experience to argue that the purpose of universal education is to provide young people with an “apprenticeship for citizenship i...

"[The anti-testing] movement now has a guidebook. . . . Kamenetz shows how fundamentally American it would be to move toward a more holistic system." -- New York Times Book ReviewThe Test is an essential and critically acclaimed book for any parent confounded by our national obsession with standardized testing. It recounts the shocking history and tempestuous politics of testing and borrows strategies from fields as diverse as games, neuroscience,...

While teaching at an all-Black middle school in Atlanta, Levinson realized that her students’ individual self-improvement would not necessarily enable them to overcome their historical marginalization. In order to overcome their civic empowerment gap, students must learn how to reshape power relationships through public political and civic action.

Ensure learning equality in every classroom. Investigate previous and current policies designed to help close the achievement gap. Examine predominant mindsets that contradict school missions to promote equal academic opportunities, and consider the psychological impact this has on students. Explore strategies for adopting a new mindset that frees educators and students from negative academic performance expectations.