Education Reform

The New York Times–bestselling author of Rise of the Robots shows what happens as AI takes over our lives If you have a smartphone, you have AI in your pocket. AI is impossible to avoid online. And it has already changed everything from how doctors diagnose disease to how you...

This thought-provoking work traces the origins of voucher-based education reform to mid-twentieth-century fears over school desegregation. It shows how, in the intervening decades, a cabal of billionaire conservatives supporting a host of special political interests-including economic libertarianism, religious choice, and parental rights-have converged around the issue of education freedom in an ongoing culture war. Through deliberate policymaking, legislation, and litigation, Cowen reveals, an insular advocacy network has enacted a flawed system for education finance driven largely by dogma.

An inside look at America's most controversial charter schools, and the moral and political questions around public education and school choice. The promise of public education is excellence for all. But that promise has seldom been kept for low-income children of color in America. In How the...

In What's the Point of College?, historian Johann N. Neem offers a new way to think about the major questions facing higher education today, from online education to disruptive innovation to how students really learn. As commentators, reformers, and policymakers call for dramatic change and new educational models, this collection of lucid essays asks us to pause and take stock. What is a college education supposed to be? What kinds of institutions and practices will best help us get there? And which virtues must colleges and universities cultivate to sustain their desired ends?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, required equal access to public places and employment, and enforced desegregation of schools and the right to vote. Today, the Black community faces an alarming education gap, a higher rate of unemployment/underemployment, and inequalities in the criminal justice system. A Black agenda or strategy is necessary to reverse these critical issues on a national level through public policy such as major reform in education, employment, and criminal justice.

Baltimore City Public Schools is one of America’s largest and most funded school systems. Yet, historically, it is among the lowest performing. In 2024, despite a $1.7 billion budget, just 10% of students tested proficient in math. Investigative journalist Chris Papst follows the money to uncover why students continue to fail within a school system that’s failing Baltimore. Failure Factory shines a critical light on America’s public education system by exposing what’s really happening inside classrooms and behind administrative doors.

In this best-selling expose of national policy gone wrong, America's foremost historian of education, Diane Ravitch, renounces her support for reform policies implemented over the past decade that she says are wrecking America's cherished tradition of public education.

The tragedy of our Indian policies demands reexamination immediately - not only because they make the lives of millions of American citizens harder and more dangerous - but also because they represent a microcosm of everything that has gone wrong with modern liberalism. They are the result of decades of politicians and bureaucrats showering a victimized people with money and cultural sensitivity instead of what they truly need-the education, the legal protections, and the autonomy to improve their own situation.

The K-12 education sector is isolated from the wider economy, causing teachers and school administrators to feel stuck in jobs they no longer want and without clear pathways to pivot to new careers. By examining the career journeys of 20 former educators, we learn the reasons so many educators are seeking to leave the profession, from the constant crises to factors causing burnout and work-life imbalance, illustrating how schools and districts are failing to monitor and improve their employee experience and wellbeing.

A leading scholar-practitioner and ardent proponent of culturally responsive forms of education, Jeffrey M. R. Duncan-Andrade aims to settle the debates over whether we should work toward a public education system built on the goal of equality, in which identical resources are provided for all students, or equity, in which different resources are offered in response to differences in student interests and needs.

As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience—an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers—is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich.

Having watched the deterioration of academia up close for the past 50 years, Ellis locates the core of the problem in a change in the composition of the faculty during this time, from mildly left-leaning to almost exclusively leftist. He explains how astonishing historical luck led to the success of a plan first devised by a small group of activists to use college campuses to promote radical politics, and why laws and regulations designed to prevent the politicizing of higher education proved insufficient.

Meaningful school reform starts with your most powerful partner—your students! When you take time to listen, you’ll find that students’ aspirations can drive your school toward exciting new goals—and when students know they’re being heard, they engage meaningfully in their own academic success. Using examples drawn from student surveys, focus groups, observations, and interviews, this groundbreaking book presents a blueprint for a successful partnership between educators and students.

Die legendäre Montessori-Methode, die die frühkindliche Erziehung revolutioniert und das Kind als Individuum in den Mittelpunkt gestellt hat. Simone Davies' großes Montessori-Buch bietet einen Schritt-für-Schritt-Plan, der Familien hilft, Ruhe, Schönheit und Achtsamkeit in den Alltag zu bringen. Die Autorin eröffnet eine positive Sicht auf das Kind, auch bei Wutanfällen, Kita-Problemen und anderen Herausforderungen.

Safe Is Not Enough illustrates how educators can support the positive development of LGBTQ students in a comprehensive way so as to create truly inclusive school communities. Using examples from classrooms, schools, and districts across the country, Michael Sadowski identifies emerging practices such as creating an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum; fostering a whole-school climate that is supportive of LGBTQ students; providing adults who can act as mentors and role models; and initiating effective family and community outreach programs.

After decades of off-shoring, downsizing, shuttered factories, and stranded blue collar workers, the United States is on the edge of an industrial renaissance. This is news that would have seemed beyond improbable even a decade ago, but companies like Motorola Mobility, Apple, BMW, Bosch, and Volkswagen are opening plants and committing millions of dollars to build new products here.

If you are a young person, and you work hard enough, you can get a college degree and set yourself on the path to a good life, right? Not necessarily, says Sara Goldrick-Rab, and with Paying the Price, she shows in damning detail exactly why. Drawing on an unprecedented study of 3,000 young adults who entered public colleges and universities in Wisconsin in 2008 with the support of federal aid and Pell Grants, Goldrick-Rab reveals the devastating effect of these shortfalls.

As a teacher in an inner-city school, Lucy Crehan was exasperated with ever-changing government policy claiming to be based on lessons from top-performing education systems. She resolved to find out what was really going on in the classrooms of countries whose teenagers ranked top in the world in reading, maths, and science. Cleverlands documents Crehan's journey around the world, weaving together her experiences with research on policy, history, psychology, and culture to offer extensive new insights into what we can learn from these countries.

The Teacher's Attention is a fresh take on relationships in schools. Looking beyond our obsession with raising test scores, this book recognizes that education is a key partner in raising children. Garrett Delavan contends that allowing students, educators and parents to navigate a smaller number of relationships - a concept he calls "relationship load" - provides many benefits, including a better chance at achieving equal access to a good education for all children.

Breaking Barriers shows how to redesign high schools so that all students can move on to college and successful careers. In a negation of the American dream, a child's zip code is currently a far better predictor of success than hard work, intelligence, or resilience. This book tells the story of a school model that focuses on equity and works to prove that all young people can achieve academic excellence given the right support. P-TECH combines public high schools and community colleges in partnership with employers, providing both opportunity and support for all students.