Social Reform

Empowering Voices by Sage Ellison is a vital guide aimed at fostering diversity and inclusivity within educational settings amid rising opposition to such initiatives. The book serves as a resource for educators, parents, and community members who aspire to create a supportive environment where every student feels valued and heard.

School Meals for All by Sage Ellison addresses the critical issue of school lunch debt and emphasizes the importance of providing equitable access to nutritious meals for every student. Recognizing that hunger significantly hampers academic potential, Ellison explores how traditional lunch-debt policies disproportionately affect financially struggling families, further compounding educational inequities.

In the aftermath of World War II, America stood alone as the world's premier military power. Yet its martial confidence contrasted vividly with its sense of cultural inferiority. Still looking to a defeated and dispirited Europe for intellectual and artistic guidance, burgeoning transnational elite in New York and Washington embraced not only the war's refugees but many of their ideas as well, and nothing has proven more pernicious than those of the Frankfurt School and its reactionary philosophy of "critical theory".

Has American democracy's long, ambitious run come to an end? Possibly yes. As William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe argue in this trenchant new analysis of modern politics, the United States faces a historic crisis that threatens our system of self-government - and if democracy is to be saved, the causes of the crisis must be understood and defused.

For over a generation, shocking cases of censorship at America's colleges and universities have taught students the wrong lessons about living in a free society. Drawing on a decade of experience battling for freedom of speech on campus, First Amendment lawyer Greg Lukianoff reveals how higher education fails to teach students to become critical thinkers: by stifling open debate, our campuses are supercharging ideological divisions, promoting groupthink, and encouraging an unscholarly certainty about complex issues.

The authors illuminate the problems of the educational system in relation to those of the larger society and argue for the pressing need to transform the classroom in both Third and First World contexts. They demonstrate how vital the teacher's role is in empowering students to think critically about themselves and their relation, not only to the classroom, but to society.

This book contains the fundamental works of Marxism, Anarchism and Bolshevism: The Communist Manifesto, originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg; The Conquest of Bread by the Russian anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin; Anarchism: What it Really Stands For by Emma Goldman; The State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin; Fascism: What It Is and How To Fight It by Leon Trotsky.

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.

Fair Work by Sage Ellison is a vital guide that addresses the injustices within the prison labor system, particularly the need for fair wages and ethical practices. The book examines the systemic barriers that create inequities for incarcerated workers, offering insights into advocacy for meaningful reform. Ellison outlines the challenges faced by those seeking to support fair labor practices, such as exploitation in prison work, ineffective policies, and the need for practical advocacy steps.

"Money in Politics: Achieving Campaign Finance Reform and Dark-Money Transparency" by Sage Ellison provides a vital guide to understanding and combating the overwhelming influence of money in political systems. Recognizing the frustrations many feel about the lack of transparency in campaign financing, Ellison empowers listeners to reclaim their voice and push for necessary reforms. The book addresses key challenges including the opaque nature of political donations and the pervasive impact of dark money on elections.

Based on two years of research, Nice Is Not Enough shares striking dispatches from one high school's "regime of kindness" to underline how the culture operates as a Band-Aid on persistent inequalities. Through incisive storytelling and thoughtful engagement with students, this brilliant study by C. J. Pascoe exposes uncomfortable truths about American politics and our reliance on individual solutions instead of profound systemic change.

Electronic monitoring. Locked-down drug treatment centers. House arrest. Mandated psychiatric treatment. Data-driven surveillance. Extended probation. These are some of the key alternatives held up as cost-effective substitutes for jails and prisons. But many of these so-called reforms actually widen the net, weaving in new strands of punishment and control, and bringing new populations, who would not otherwise have been subject to imprisonment, under physical control by the state.

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education warned, “The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.” Forty years later, are things better or worse? This book shares forty examples of how poorly today’s government schools are doing to show that the “rising tide of mediocrity” has created a tsunami of low expectations and poor performance, suggesting the need for alternative solutions.

Students of all backgrounds reach their full potential when they feel a sense of belonging and inclusion. When their social identities are valued as assets rather than barriers to learning, they flourish. This guide provides evidence-based strategies that support you as a leader in creating an environment that promotes identity-safe students, who experience a challenging curriculum that respects their diverse social identities.

Innovation expert Ted Dintersmith took an unprecedented trip across America, visiting all 50 states in a single school year. He originally set out to raise awareness about the urgent need to reimagine education to prepare students for a world marked by innovation, but America's teachers one-upped him. He met teachers in ordinary settings doing extraordinary things. Capturing bold ideas from teachers and classrooms across America, What School Could Be provides a realistic, and profoundly optimistic, roadmap for creating cultures of innovation and real learning in all our schools.

An explosive new look at the pressures on today's teachers and the pitfalls of school reform, Confessions of a Bad Teacher presents a passionate appeal to save public schools, before it's too late. When John Owens left a lucrative job to teach English at a public school in New York City's South Bronx, he thought he could do some good. Faced with a flood of struggling students, Owens devised ingenious ways to engage every last one. But as his students began to thrive under his tutelage, Owens found himself increasingly mired in a broken educational system.

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. The book looks objectively at the contexts in which higher education has operated—and will continue to operate. It also seeks to identify likely developments that will aid those involved in steering higher education forward.

Higher education has seen better days. Harsh budget cuts, the precarious nature of employment in college teaching, and political hostility to the entire enterprise of education have made for an increasingly fraught landscape. Radical Hope is an ambitious response to this state of affairs, at once political and practical - the work of an activist, teacher, and public intellectual grappling with some of the most pressing topics at the intersection of higher education and social justice.

A "persuasive and essential" (Matthew Desmond) work that will forever change how we look at life after prison in America through Miller's "stunning, and deeply painful reckoning with our nation's carceral system" (Heather Ann Thompson). Each year, more than half a million Americans are released...

Named after Mahatma Gandhi's phrase for the schools of pre-colonial India, The Beautiful Tree recounts Tooley's journey from the largest shanty town in Africa to the hinterlands of Gansu, China. It introduces listeners to the families and teachers who taught him that the poor are not waiting for educational handouts. They are building their own schools and educating themselves.