Is a renaissance of teaching and learning in higher education possible? One may already be underway. The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changed how colleges and universities manage teaching and learning. Recentering Learning unpacks the wide-reaching implications of disruptions such as the pandemic on higher education.

Essentials of Education Policy improves students' and educational leaders' understanding of the complex education policy system in the U.S. Through an applied pedagogical approach that connects analytical concepts from public policy and education research to professional practice, the book offers academic content and applications for elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education leaders.

While acknowledging the scale of loss and difficulty the COVID pandemic engendered within the field of education, this book focuses on how sudden and forced changes to teaching and learning created "Pandemic Positives," which can be captured and brought to scale. In particular: Part I addresses how Pandemic Positives came into being, with special attention to the presence of educator hope and creativity. Part II explores the Pandemic Positives that arose in three settings: when schools were closed, when learning turned online, and when schools re-opened. Part III provides strategies for replicating the Pandemic Positives so they become positive educational game changers.

The Big Lie About Race in America's Schools delivers a collective response to the challenge of racially charged misinformation, disinformation, and censorship that increasingly permeates and weakens not only US education but also our democracy. In this thought-provoking volume, Royel Johnson and Shaun Harper bring together leading education scholars and educators to confront the weaponized distortions that are currently undermining both public education and racial justice. The experts gathered in this work offer strategies to counter these dangerous trends and uphold truth in education.

The Stories We Tell looks holistically at the uses of story in schools and sets out the ways it can be used to support teaching, including by: Organising the curriculum and helping to structure lessons Aiding students' memorisation Promoting inclusion Preparing students for future success In addition, it offers four ways of using story and storytelling in the school improvement process to: Consult, communicate, and collaborate with stakeholders during the school improvement journey Articulate a vision for the future and foster a set of shared values Build trust and adopt ethical leadership behaviours to create a no-blame culture that encourages risk-taking Resolve conflict and manage people, and lead change and manage PR

Wage stagnation, growing inequality, and even poverty itself have resulted from decades of neoliberal decision making, not the education system, writes Neil Kraus in his urgent call to action, The Fantasy Economy. Kraus claims the idea that both the education system and labor force are chronically deficient was aggressively and incorrectly promoted starting in the Reagan era, when corporate interests and education reformers emphasized education as the exclusive mechanism providing the citizenry with economic opportunity. However, as this critical book reveals, that is a misleading articulation of the economy and education system rooted in the economic self-interests of corporations and the wealthy.

A guide to disrupting harmful mindsets and practices in our schools so that students can thrive where they are. In many schools and districts, students of color living in low-income communities are told in simple and covert ways every day that they must leave their communities if they want to be successful. The message may be well-intentioned, but the leave to succeed (L2S) mindset is a dangerous narrative that affects students' sense of self. Instead, Nancy Gutiérrez and Roberto Padilla turn the L2S mindset on its head to interrogate how school and district leaders can nurture and support students to find success in their own communities.

Conchas utilizes a critical lens to examine the intersectional identities of racially minoritized students, the role of existing power hierarchies within schools, and offers specific structural approaches that create educational opportunity. This book amplifies student voice; explores school, family, and community partnerships; promotes culturally relevant pedagogy and teacher preparation; includes a new chapter on Black male optimism after the historic election of President Barack Obama; and offers a thought-provoking additional chapter on the role of educational leaders in promoting successful school pathways; plus it contains a thoroughly revised quantitative chapter on social capital. With a sense of urgency, readers will gain vital insights for understanding what is needed to create, promote, and expand equitable school environments and transformative pathways for racially minoritized urban youth.

Where Equity Lives: Shattering Systemic Inequity in Schools and Districts is the result of 25 years of studying over 300 schools and districts struggling to overturn the longstanding pattern of under achievement of the same demographic groups. This book is a reveal of the five most common systemic inequity traps identified through the Study of Studies that help explain historic achievement patterns. The authors lay out achievable paths of possibilities for education leaders to reverse decades of under achievement.

The book provides teachers and principals an effective alternative to the antiquated "one-size-fits-all" approach that ignores both advanced and struggling pupils, leaving many school children without essential everyday skills. The promising option offers all youngsters-low achievers, high achievers, and those in between-the opportunity to advance through the curriculum as far and as fast as their acquired skills allow.

"This book describes a reconceptualized teacher preparation program based on a teacher residency model. Through a combination of rich description, and qualitative and quantitative program data, the authors make the case that university programs focused on the communities they serve can ensure more effective, learner-ready teachers who remain in the profession longer."

We present, in this book, a model and process called The Collective Mindset which embraces collaboration, communication, reflection, and future-thought. That is, for every action we take in education, we must understand how to empathize and relate to others, as well as reflect on how each decision affects others within the space.

The authors of Design for Change in Higher Education argue that we must imagine and actively make our way to new institutional forms. They assert that design--a practical art that is conceptually rich and visible in its concreteness--must become a core internal competency of the university. They propose one grounded in the practical experiences of a specific educational design organization: Michigan State University's Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology, which all three authors have helped to run.

The word "dignity" is not typically used in education, yet it is at the core of strong pedagogy. This book names the concept and shows readers what education looks like when it is centered on students' dignity. By bringing together a collection of chapters written by authors with wide-ranging expertise, this volume presents a powerful approach to education that reminds people of their somebodiness--the premise that each person inherently possesses the intellectual acumen and creative resources to pursue development on their own terms.

We must act now, using what we already know, to advance equity and raise the achievement of every student. With three decades of leading equity work across the country, George S. Perry Jr. issues a call to action for educational leaders who are willing to fight the fight for equity for all students. School and district leaders will encounter roadblocks as they enact systemic change, but Equity Warriors introduces practical, realistic, and strategic approaches for navigating those barriers.

Establishing a Leadership Mindset provides a more natural approach to obtaining buy-in for constant growth by harnessing the power of strategies proven by cognitive science and brain physiology. By fostering greater purpose and passion in the intentional efforts of educators, the goal is to achieve leadership throughout the team or organization.

This book examines how a flux leadership mindset and corresponding tools promote the conditions for educational change that uplift stakeholders and generate contextualized data during emergency situations. The educational leaders at the heart of this book employed a flux leadership tool through a process called "rapid-cycle inquiry," which allows for collaborative inquiries to take place in real time to answer tough questions and surface stories that are often silenced in times of sudden change.

To truly serve all learners, future classrooms must remove the boundaries of learning and become student-centered, culturally responsive, and personalized--supportive and equitable environments where each student can direct their own learning and seek multiple pathways to skills and knowledge in a global learning ecosystem. This compelling call for transformative change offers all involved in education: Evidence-based arguments that reveal the need to break the traditional borders that limit learning, Strategies to personalize learning and remove the confinement of traditional pathways, Examples from around the world to create equitable and student-centric learning environments, Resources for creating a school learning environment that expands opportunities for personalized learning into the global learning ecosystem.

"Delivering equity for PK-12 learners is an essential aim for educational leadership preparation programs. This book serves as a resource for equity-focused design and redesign thorough innovation, improvement and impact. Based on direct experience while also drawing from innovative exemplars, and unpacking a decade of program improvement practice, this book explores how to foster partnerships and pipelines, recruit and select candidates, map the curriculum, develop powerful learning experiences, create field experiences, design program evaluation, and support faculty learning."

Drawing from his experience with the High Schools That Work initiative, Gene Bottoms offers educators a path forward by urging them to pursue bold goals and outlining bold actions for achieving those goals. His vision is clear: replace the traditional model of secondary education with one that engages students in a rigorous curriculum that combines a solid academic core with intellectually demanding career pathway courses.

Providing a critical look at how it is possible for institutions of higher education to go beyond the institutional constraints that plague the neo-liberal university, the authors of this volume explore the powerful role of transformative university-based research and education.

In When Schools Work, Bruce Fuller details the rise of civic activists in L.A. as they emerged from the ashes of urban riots and failed efforts to desegregate schools. Based on the author's fifteen years of field work in L.A., the book reveals how this network of Latino and Black leaders, civil rights lawyers, ethnic nonprofits, and pedagogical progressives coalesced in the 1990s, staking out a third political ground and gaining distance from corporate neoliberals and staid labor chiefs. Fuller shows how these young activists--whom he terms "new pluralists"--proceeded to better fund central-city schools, win quality teachers, widen access to college prep courses, decriminalize student discipline, and even create a panoply of new school forms, from magnet schools to dual-language campuses, site-run small high schools, and social-justice focused classrooms.

Between the State and the Schoolhouse examines the Common Core State Standards from the initiative's promising beginnings to its disappointing outcomes. Situating the standards in the long history of state and federal efforts to shape education, the book describes a series of critical lessons that highlight the political and structural challenges of large-scale, top-down reforms.

Grounded in the real, as opposed to the rhetorical, importance of community in making change, these revealing conversations also explore * why the public no longer sees faculty as heroes and experts * how to overcome the academy's fondness for slogans * how money talks * why curricular change doesn't (usually) happen * the students we hardly know and how we might come to know them better * how to constructively approach differences of race and gender * and much more .

Martha Abele Mac Iver and Robert Balfanz, national experts in dropout prevention, apply the Carnegie Foundation's continuous improvement framework to the issue of student success in high school, starting with the critical ninth-grade year. A proven tool for organizational change, the continuous improvement framework provides a systematic structure for examining the root causes of problems and testing possible solutions.

Creating an Award-Winning School: Outside the Box Thinking for Inside-the- School Success, is the result of collaboration between the authors and practicing and retired administrators. The book is written for new and experienced school administrators, college level instructors, and leaders in the private sector.

Focusing on high performing or rapidly improving districts that serve children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, the book explores the common elements that have led to the districts' successes, including leadership, processes, and systems. Districts That Succeed reveals that helping more students achieve is not a matter of adopting a program or practice. Rather, it requires developing a district-wide culture where all adults feel responsible for the academic well-being of students and adopt systems and processes that support that culture.

In The Great Upheaval, Arthur Levine and Scott Van Pelt examine higher and postsecondary education to see how it has changed to become what it is today--and how it might be refitted for an uncertain future. Taking a unique historical, cross-industry perspective, Levine and Van Pelt perform a 360-degree survey of American higher education. Combining historical, trend, and comparative analyses of other business sectors, they ask * how much will colleges and universities change, what will change, and how will these changes occur? * will institutions of higher learning be able to adapt to the challenges they face, or will they be disrupted by them? * will the industrial model of higher education be repaired or replaced? * why is higher education more important than ever?

In this volume, two notable scholars trace the monumental shifts in theory, research, and practice related to reading education and literacy, with particular attention to what they consider the central goal of literacy--making meaning. Each section describes a specific epoch, including a brief snapshot of how the reader of that period is envisioned and characterized by researchers and teachers, as well as a deep discussion of the ideas and contextual events of that era.

Together, the authors reflect on educational initiatives and life in democratic societies, arguing for an increased awareness of the educational processes at work within our contexts, places, and personal lives. Chapters argue that authority and knowledge belong to everyone and that these are found on every level of perceived educational hierarchies. This book calls for attention to be paid to the voices of teachers in school, students in the classroom, participants in a project, and researchers embedded in a community--highlighting that they all have something to teach about understanding the world all are working to create in an uncertain educational future.

This book is designed to help you navigate the challenges and joys of building and maintaining a healthy restorative ecosystem in your school, while providing concrete tools and real-world stories to guide you through the process.

Kindergarten has changed. Many believe that it no longer reflects a nurturing environment but, instead, has become a race for children to learn skills so they are ready for the academic achievement tests that they will take continuously throughout their time in school. Resisting the Kinder-Race examines how the race came about, why it must change, and how all stakeholders in the early childhood and elementary school communities must take part in the reform process.

Universities and colleges like to self-idealize as relatively neutral and value-free sites of higher learning. In reality, the idea of the Westernized academy is deeply embedded in a Eurocentric logic that not only excludes alternative forms of knowledge and knowing, but also remains racialized, gendered, and sited in coloniality with respect to governance, scholarship, and entitlements.

While student agency is considered an important aspect of classroom learning, opportunities to support and promote agency can be easily missed. This book addresses the inner dimensions of student agency to show what it is, why it is needed, and how it can be translated into instructional practices.

In Teaching with Clarity, Tony Frontier focuses on three fundamental questions to help reduce curricular and organizational clutter in the interest of clarity and focus: * What does it mean to understand? * What is most important to understand? * How do we prioritize our strategic effort to help students understand what is most important? By prioritizing clear success criteria, intentional design, meaningful feedback, and a shared purpose, teachers can begin to clear away the curricular clutter that overwhelms the profession-and embrace the clarity that emerges.

Clint Bolick and Kate J. Hardiman begin with a thought experiment: how would we structure a 21st-century K-12 school system if we were starting from scratch, attending to contemporary parental needs and harnessing the power of technology? Maintaining that the status quo is unacceptable, they take a forward-thinking look at how choice, competition, deregulation, and decentralization can create disruptive innovation and reform education for all students.

Wallowing in Mediocrity: Or Rising Above the Dismal State of Education provides a comprehensive comparative look at educational programs in several key countries across the globe. The myriad advantages of these countries' programs are counterpoised to the many fault lines in education as practiced in the United States. To offset these problematic areas, this book takes a critical look at how the United States could rectify the many problems associated with its system of education, especially concerning inefficient and unsustainable practices at the secondary and postsecondary levels.

In Why Are We Still Doing That?, the best-selling authors of Total Participation Techniques lead a teacher-positive, empathetic inquiry into 16 common educational practices that can undermine student learning...

In Challenging the One Best System, a team of leading education scholars offers a rich comparative analysis of the set of urban education governance reforms collectively known as the "portfolio management model." They investigate the degree to which this model--a system of schools operating under different types of governance and with different degrees of autonomy--challenges the standard structure of district governance famously characterized by David Tyack as "the one best system."

Eminent historian and educator Larry Cuban provides a thorough examination of, and challenge to, past and present definitions of what constitutes educational success in the US. Cuban argues that in the history of American education, standards of achievement and inadequacy--as well as the reform efforts issuing from them--have been neither stable nor consistent. Nor are these standards untainted by political considerations.

Over a decade ago, the first edition of City Schools and the American Dream debuted just as reformers were gearing up to make sweeping changes in urban education. Despite the rhetoric and many reform initiatives, urban schools continue to struggle under the weight of serious challenges. What went wrong and is there hope for future change? More than a new edition, this sequel to the original bestseller has been substantially revised to include insights from new research, recent demographic trends, and emerging political realities.

Presenting a strategic approach to aid Puerto Rico's recovery from Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the report details prestorm conditions, assesses damage and recovery needs, and describes courses of action for the Education sector. Analyses and discussions with local education stakeholders and subject-matter experts informed the development of 13 courses of action to support Puerto Rico's recovery plan and efforts to transform the education system.

Once, teachers who knew their content area and knew how to teach it were respected as professionals. Now there is an additional type of competency required: in addition to content and pedagogical knowledge, educators need advocacy skills. In this groundbreaking collection, literacy educators describe how they are redefining what it means to be a teaching professional.

In Evidence, Politics, and Education Policy, political scientists Lorraine M. McDonnell and M. Stephen Weatherford provide an original analysis of evidence use in education policymaking to help scholars and advocates shape policy more effectively. The book shows how multiple types of evidence are combined as elected officials and their staffs work with researchers, advocates, policy entrepreneurs, and intermediary organizations to develop, create, and implement education policies.

In this powerful manifesto, the bestselling author of Cultural Literacy addresses the failures of America's early education system and its impact on our current national malaise, advocating for a shared knowledge curriculum students everywhere can be taught--an educational foundation that can help improve and strengthen America's unity, identity, and democracy.

Improvement in Action, Anthony S. Bryk's sequel to Learning to Improve, illustrates how educators have effectively applied the six core principles of continuous improvement in practice. The book highlights relevant examples of rigorous, high-quality improvement work in districts, schools, and professional development networks across the country.

A systematic, integrated, chronological, multi-disciplinary approach to reinvigorate the teaching of the liberal arts and put them back where they belong--at the center of a student's educational experience. It does not pretend to offer a cure-all or a one-size-fits-all solution to everything that is ailing American higher education, or even secondary education. It does, however, offer a place to begin a discussion, to invite experimentation, and to initiate reform based on solid pedagogy and 2,500 years of time-tested wisdom in the human experience.

This volume demonstrates how principals influence success in 14 elementary schools across Mexico. The cases show the importance of learning in an international school leadership context to address cultural, social, and academic needs of students in their families.

Steps to Schoolwide Success makes a powerful case for the implementation of a school reform that bridges academic and social-emotional learning systems in high schools. Based on a multi-year project in Broward County, Florida, the book describes how the biggest difference in academic success from school to school was not in instructional practice but in the systematic attention to personal relationships between adults and students.

"Drawing on over fifty years of on-the-ground experience, Fred M. Hayward's Transforming Higher Education in Asia and Africa analyzes change processes in higher education in eight Asian and African countries. The twelve cases range from the push to upgrade and transform higher education in Afghanistan in the midst of a war to the successful struggle against apartheid in South African institutions as well as thwarted efforts in Sierra Leone and Madagascar."

The Way We Do School: The Making of Oakland's Full-Service Community School District offers an in-depth profile of the nation's most ambitious community school initiative. The book focuses on a nearly ten-year effort to transform all eighty-six district schools in Oakland, California into community schools in order to better meet the academic and personal needs of all students.