Educator Mike Schmoker paints a disturbing picture using “brutal facts” to explain why so many students are not learning at high levels. Cathy Gassenheimer says that reading Results Now 2.0 is disturbing but notes Schmoker includes a way out of “the current education quagmire.”
Small Changes, Big Impact can guide educators in making 10 research-based changes that will have a significant positive impact on the culture and learning in a school, writes middle level teacher Kristen Donnelly, who says the ideas are aimed primarily at schoolwide reform.
John Merrow weaves a narrative that explores the history of America’s failed school reform efforts and offers a vision for ridding public education of our addiction to more of the same in favor of long-term, meaningful and sustainable change, writes teacher Rita Platt.
In “The Educator and the Oligarch,” says teacher-reviewer Elisa Waingort, education activist Anthony Cody has written an informative, highly referenced work that traces the relationship of Bill Gates to the gradual privatization of public education in the U.S.
Dale Russakoff’s The Prize recounts what happens to Newark NJ schools when Gov. Chris Christie, Mayor Cory Booker and Supt. Cami Anderson take a $100 million gift from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and invest in corporate reform. Matt Renwick says it’s a must read.
Reviewer Lorie Shiveley agrees with many of Kristen Olson’s concerns about wounded students in Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing Up to Old School Culture, but Shiveley says teachers get too much of the blame.
