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Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education, by Joe Williams, Director of Democrats for School Choice Journalist Joe Williams shows how parents can use consumer power to put children first, shining light on the special interests controlling our schools, where politics and pork infuse everything and our children's education is compromised, . He argues that increased accountability and choice are necessary, and shows how the people can take back the education system, enhancing responsibility inherent in democracy. The solution is a new brand of hardball politics that demands competence from school leaders and shifts the power away from bureaucrats and union leaders to the people who have a the greatest reason to put kids first: concerned parents. With practical steps and uplifting examples of success, this is a manifesto to action.
The Sandbox Investment: the Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics, by David L. Kirp The rich have always valued early education, and for the past forty years, millions of poor kids have had Head Start. Now, more and more middle class parents have realized that a good preschool is the smartest investment they can make in their children's future in a competitive world. As The Sandbox Investment shows, their needs are key to the growing call for universal preschool. Writing with the verve of a magazine journalist and the authority of a scholar, David L. Kirp makes the ideal guide to this quiet movement. He crouches in classrooms where committed teachers engage lively four-year-olds, and reveals the findings of an extraordinary longitudinal study that shows the life-changing impact of preschool. He talks with cutting-edge researchers from neuroscience and genetics to economics, whose findings increasingly show how powerfully early childhood shapes the arc of children's lives. Kids-first politics is smart economics: paying for preschool now can help save us from paying for unemployment, crime, and emergency rooms later. As Kirp reports from the inside, activists and political leaders have turned this potent idea into campaigns and policies in red and blue states alike. The Sandbox Investment is the first full story of a campaign that asks Americans to endorse a vision of society that does well by doing good. For anyone who is interested in politics or the social uses of research--for anyone who's interested in the children's futures--it's a compelling read.
Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, by Clayton Christensen A crash course in the business of learning-from the bestselling author of The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution… “A brilliant teacher, Christensen brings clarity to a muddled and chaotic world of education.” According to recent studies in neuroscience, the way we learn doesn't always match up with the way we are taught. If we hope to stay competitive-academically, economically, and technologically-we need to rethink our understanding of intelligence, reevaluate our educational system, and reinvigorate our commitment to learning. In other words, we need “disruptive innovation.” Now, in his long-awaited new book, Clayton M. Christensen and coauthors Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson take one of the most important issues of our time-education-and apply Christensen's now-famous theories of “disruptive” change using a wide range of real-life examples. Whether you're a school administrator, government official, business leader, parent, teacher, or entrepreneur, you'll discover surprising new ideas, outside-the-box strategies, and straight-A success stories. You'll learn how Customized learning will help many more students succeed in school Student-centric classrooms will increase the demand for new technology Computers must be disruptively deployed to every student Disruptive innovation can circumvent roadblocks that have prevented other attempts at school reform We can compete in the global classroom-and get ahead in the global market Filled with fascinating case studies, scientific findings, and unprecedented insights on how innovation must be managed, Disrupting Class will open your eyes to new possibilities, unlock hidden potential, and get you to think differently. Professor Christensen and his coauthors provide a bold new lesson in innovation that will help you make the grade for years to come. The future is now. Class is in session.
Raising the Grade: How High School Reform Can Save Our Youth and Our Nation, by Bob Wise
Written by Bob Wise, former governor of West Virginia and current president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, Raising the Grade describes the alarming cost of our long-time neglect of secondary education. At a time when technology and postsecondary education requirements are rising dramatically in the workforce, the literacy skills of adolescents are not keeping pace. With most federal dollars targeted to elementary schools and higher education, few resources are allocated to improve high schools, to address the achievement gap threatening nearly 6 million students at risk of dropping out in the United States. Raising the Grade is rooted in the stories of real Americans whose high school experiences failed to engage or adequately prepare them for work or college.
Two Million Minutes: a Global Examination. Documentary film about education. Bob Compton, executive producer Personally, I know that China and India are not “Third World” countries, but that is because I’ve traveled to those countries and I deeply admire their cultures and their people. The inspiration for the name “Third World Challenge” came a statement made to me by a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education when I showed my film Two Million Minutes for the HGSE faulty. “We have nothing to learn from education systems in Third World countries,” he intoned with much gravitas, “Much less a Third World country that lacks freedom of speech.” To my surprise, no other faculty member rose to challenge that statement. While I certainly expected a more open-minded and globally aware audience at Harvard, I have now screened my film around the country and a surprisingly large segment of the American population believes India and China’s K-12 education systems are inferior to that of the United States. While no American makes the statement with the boundless hubris of a Harvard professor, the conclusion often is the same – America is number one in education and always will be. This of course is not true. American students’ academic achievement has been declining vis-à-vis other developed countries for more than 20 years. What is now surprising and worrisome is US students are even lagging the developing world. If our athletic performance at the Olympics were as poor as our global academic performance it would be a national crisis and every level of government would be attempting to respond. That we blithely ignore the declining intellectual standards of American students seems almost insane. The cognitive skills of our children will determine both America’s economic future and the economic future of each child. But perhaps I overstate the high standards of the developing world, particularly India and China. So, to test that assumption, my company Indian Math Online has created the “Third World Challenge” – this is a shortened and greatly simplified version of the multi-day proficiency test that every 10th grader in India must pass to go on to the 11th grade. Think American education standards are higher than the Third World – well why not have your 11th or 12th grade son or daughter try the Third World Challenge? After all in just a few more years the challenge will be in the marketplace for high paying jobs – might as well find out now if your son or daughter is competitive. Sincerely,
Let's Put Parents Back in Charge! - New Bilingual Edition! Let's Put Parents Back in Charge!--a 96-page paperback book by Heartland President Joseph L. Bast and Board Chairman Herbert J. Walberg--was released in July 2003. The bilingual English-Spanish edition was published in Fall 2005. Let's Put Parents Back in Charge! shows how badly real education reform is needed by documenting the academic, social, and political failures of the country's current education system. It explains how educational choice would improve schools by replacing the broken institutions that cause the current government school system to fail.
The book also explains what capitalism is and refutes the left's litany of false charges and myths about it, thereby showing how capitalism and education are entirely compatible. Finally, the book describes how vouchers would put parents back in charge of their children's education, describing how voucher programs can be designed and presenting brief answers to the questions most commonly asked about voucher programs. The entire book is available online in Adobe Acrobat's PDF format: Let's Put Parents Back in Charge! (English) !Pongamos a los Padres Nuevamente a Cargo! (Spanish)
Education and Capitalism: How Overcoming Our Fear of Markets and Economics Can Improve America's Schools The Hoover Institution Press published in November Education and Capitalism: How Overcoming Our Fear of Markets and Economics Can Improve America’s Schools, by Heartland President Joseph L. Bast and Herbert J. Walberg, chairman of Heartland’s Board of Directors. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman called the book “a thoughtful, thorough examination of the virtues of capitalism and free markets as a way to organize elementary and secondary education in a democracy.” Educator Bruno V. Manno, now with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, deemed it “a first rate book on improving America’s schools that challenges the popular fallacies, misunderstandings, and romantic notions that many have about capitalism and economics and that makes the case for market-based school reforms.” The entire book is available online, chapter-by-chapter, in Adobe Acrobat's PDF format, at http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/books/edcap.html. Alternatively, click here to order the book from The Heartland Institute's online store.
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