Social Reform

College costs more today than ever and is worth less. Tuition at public colleges has more than tripled in the past 50 years. Over the same period student debt has grown from virtually nothing to more than $1.7 trillion, second only to home mortgages. Skyrocketing student-loan burdens are leading an entire generation to put off the traditional milestones of adulthood: buying homes, getting married, starting families, and saving for retirement.

Award-winning journalist Mike Hixenbaugh delivers the immersive and eye-opening story of Southlake, Texas, a district that seemed to offer everything parents would want for their children—small classes, dedicated teachers, financial resources, a track record of academic success, and school spirit in abundance.

In 1954, the Supreme Court's Brown decision ended segregated schooling in the United States, but regrettably, as documented in congressional testimony and transcripts, it also ended the careers of a generation of highly qualified and credentialed Black teachers and principals. In the Deep South and northern border states over the decades following Brown, Black schools were illegally closed and Black educators were displaced en masse. By engaging with the complicated legacy of the Brown decision, Leslie T. Fenwick illuminates a crucial chapter in education history.

Chezare A. Warren chronicles the transition of a cohort of young Black males from Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men to their early experiences in higher education. A rich and closely observed account of a mission-driven school and its students, Urban Preparation makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how young males of color can best be served in schools throughout the United States today.

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.

In this searing and deeply researched examination of the promises and realities of racial integration, award-winning Washington Post journalist Laura Meckler aims to uncover where the problem lies and to shed light on what’s being done to move forward—in housing, in education, and in the promise of shared community.

Schools have long meant more than an education in America. Flawed, inequitable, underfunded, and segregated, they remain the most important engine of social mobility and the crucible of our democracy. The cost of closing them for so long during COVID, made with good intentions, has not been fully reckoned with. In The Stolen Year, Anya Kamenetz follows families across the country through the pandemic. She dives deep into the history that brought us to this point, making the case that 2020 wasn't a lost year—it was taken from our children by years of neglect and bad faith.

Reform or Revolution, also titled Social Reform or Revolution?, is an 1899 pamphlet by Polish-German Marxist theorist Rosa Luxemburg, in which she argues that trade unions, reformist political parties, and the expansion of social democracy could not create a socialist society as Eduard Bernstein, among others, argued. She contends from a historical materialist perspective that capitalism is economically unsustainable and will eventually collapse and that a revolution is necessary to transform capitalism into socialism.

Witnessing Whiteness offers a comprehensive and empathetic exploration of what white people experience when learning about race, why it is so confusing, how whiteness works in their lives, and how to act against racism. The author combines authentic storytelling, nuanced analysis, and compelling voices from a collection of cross-race guides to lead listeners through a self-reflective process that creates clarity about today’s challenging and often contradicting messages about how to be antiracist.

As a field, education has largely failed to learn from experience. Time after time, promising education reforms fall short of their goals and are abandoned as other promising ideas take their place. In Learning to Improve, the authors argue for a new approach. Rather than "implementing fast and learning slow," they believe educators should adopt a more rigorous approach to improvement that allows the field to "learn fast to implement well.

Teaching should never be color-blind. In her compelling and unapologetic memoir, Teaching While Black: A New Voice on Race and Education in New York City, teacher and writer Pamela Lewis urges her fellow educators not only to acknowledge race but to consider both the traumatic and healing impact that curriculum, pedagogical practice, and social interaction can have on students and colleagues of color.

In the 2012 edition of its flagship report, Worldwatch celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit with a far-reaching analysis of progress toward building sustainable economies. Written and read in clear language, State of the World 2012 offers a new perspective on what changes and policies will be necessary to make sustainability a permanent feature of the world's economies.

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.

At a time when popular solutions to the educational plight of poor children of color are imposed from the outside, the acclaimed Algebra Project and its founder, Robert Moses, offer a vision of school reform based in the power of communities. Founded on the belief that math-science literacy is a prerequisite for full citizenship in society, the Project works with entire communities—parents, teachers, and especially students—to create a culture of literacy around algebra, a crucial stepping-stone to college math and opportunity.

Reform or Revolution, also titled Social Reform or Revolution? is an 1899 pamphlet by Polish-German Marxist theorist Rosa Luxemburg, in which she argues that trade unions, reformist political parties, and the expansion of social democracy would not create a socialist society as Eduard Bernstein, among others, argued. She contends from a historical materialist perspective that capitalism, being economically unsustainable, would eventually collapse.

From coronavirus lockdowns to critical race theory in the classroom, it has become crystal clear that America’s schools aren’t working for America’s students and parents. No one knows this better than Betsy DeVos. In Hostages No More, DeVos unleashes her candid thoughts about working in the Trump administration, recounts her battles over the decades to put students first, hits back at “woke” curricula in our schools, and details the reforms America must pursue to fix its long and badly broken education system.

Blended learning has the power to reinvent education, but the transition requires a new approach to learning and a new skillset for educators. Loaded with research and examples, Blended Learning in Action demonstrates the advantages a blended model has over traditional instruction when technology is used to engage students both inside the classroom and online.

To succeed in the global economy, students need to function as entrepreneurs: resourceful, flexible and creative. Researcher and Professor Yong Zhao unlocks the secrets to cultivating independent thinkers who are willing and able to create jobs and contribute positively to the globalized society. This book shows how teachers, administrators and even parents can understand the entrepreneurial spirit and harness it, foster student autonomy and leadership, champion inventive learners with necessary resources, and develop global partners and resources.

For more than a generation, American education has been structured as though it was built of and for concepts, not people. This has transformed education into a vast assessment, scoring, and ranking enterprise; a sales platform for high-tech entrepreneurs; and a fiercely competitive arena of advantage and status that grinds the poor and propels the middle class into debt. In When the Light Goes On, educator Mike Rose features the stories of people of all ages and backgrounds to illuminate how education has added meaning to their lives.

The digital environment has radically changed how and what students need and want to learn, but has educational delivery radically changed? Get ready to be challenged to accommodate today’s learners as opposed to allowing default classroom practices. With its touches of humor and choose-your-own-adventure approach, the audiobook encourages listeners to search for interesting, relevant or required material and then jump right in.