Best Charter Schools
Born to Rise is the inspiring account of Deborah Kenny’s pursuit of social justice for our nation’s most vulnerable children. “One woman’s tragedy turns into triumph for hundreds of Harlem schoolchildren in Kenny’s personal and professional memoir… the anecdotes of successful teachers (Kenny’s “rock stars”) at work and students whose lives were truly turned around by her work prove persuasive and uplifting.” ( Publishers Weekly ). “Parents and principals trying to understand what makes successful schools work ought to read Born to Rise.” ( New York Times ).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I just finished the book and did two uncharastristic things: I grabbed a box of kleenex and went to Amazon to write a review. TY, and Mel for his generations of mentorships, has created scores of unbelievalable leaders, scholars, and business people."
"When will NYSED start really listening to people like Deborah Kenny and implement changes in the public school system that truly work to empower teachers and students alike? After a decade of poor professional development, little or no administrative support, dwindling family & parent involvement, and shrinking budgets, I feel tired of swimming upstream. Now, after all this time, they may implement some of these changes, but I am afraid it may bring an end to music and the arts in our school, as they are not valued as much as "core" subjects."
"While Deborah Kenny's personal story is moving in its own right, the book is important because it also raises crucial questions about the failure of our school systems."
"Now, when I think of charter schools, I smile and think of Deborah Kenny and Born to Rise."
"This was a very inspirational boojk and I applaud the author and her dedicated staff and her children for sharing this journey with the reader Some who cares very deeply about the educational welfare of her children and the students in NYC and the country didn't give up despite the hassles and the bureaucratic red tapes she went to to make her mission a huge realizaion for the future of education in this country and found a wonderful group of people who were able to teach these wonderful young people and give them hope for their successful future!!!"
"I think this is a great example of how as a leader, she invests in her team members and creates a great learning community."
"She, like many other entrepreneurs with laser like focus (which Deborah has), has managed to run schools that are successful for teachers and students that fit the mold of the school they created."
--Offers valuable insight into Montessori from multiple perspectives: teacher, administrator, school owner, and teacher trainer. --Thoroughly explains the Montessori educational methodology, providing parents and others not trained in the philosophy with a better understanding of child development and the importance of the child's environment during crucial developmental stages. --Reviews current theories on brain development and current trends in education, including the education of boys and testing, grades, and report cards. --Examines key issues affecting Montessori teachers and administrators, and provides a platform for them to express their viewpoints on the successful implementation of the Montessori philosophy. --WAV offers a checklist to help parents looking for a Montessori school, articles on Montessori, and special material for Montessori educators -- available from the Web Added Value Download Resource Center at jrosspub.com. This is a must-read for all parents considering a Montessori education for their child. Dempsey's book touches the hearts and minds of teachers, administrators, and parents alike.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"A must read for any parent interested in learning about the Montessori approach to education."
"I read it before going to meet Judy."
"She explains the how, the why, and the history behind what happens in a real Montessori environment - and she does it in an easy to understand, logical manner. This book sincerely spoke to me at the personal level so many times that it felt like it was written specifically for me and my family."
"I have been a Montessori directress for 27 years and my daughter a product of the incredible gift of Montessori education."
"It starts with a review of Maria Montessori’s life and ends with vignettes from students, alums, and parents on what Montessori means and how it affected their lives."
"This book is amazing for anyone thinking about Montessori education."
"As a parent that is thinking about Montessori for our sons about to enter school, it was important for me to find out more about this philosophy since it is different than what I had thought originally."
The state's Recovery School District (RSD), created to turn around failing schools, gradually transformed all of its New Orleans schools into charter schools, and the results are shaking the very foundations of American education. He offers myriad school models, such as 'no-excuses' schools, with longer school days and years; schools that focus on science and technology; athletics-intensive schools; single-sex schools; schools offering intense therapeutic help; and schools that seek to preserve a particular ethnic heritage." "David Osborne captures the challenges of creating great public schools and the extraordinary promise of this new model. It's certainly worked well in some of our best schools and it's a long overdue discussion among educators, parents and advocates for improving education." 'Every school a charter school.'. "David Osborne has identified the most hopeful new development in American education reform: the growing number of urban school systems that have empowered parents with school choice while also empowering educators by holding them accountable not for following rules, but for delivering results. - Martin West, Harvard Graduate School of Education Professor, National Bureau of Economic Research Fellow, and executive editor of EDUCATION NEXT.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Just as Osborne's book, Reinventing Government, was revolutionary and brilliant, so is this one."
"Osborne's book is a inspiring tale of the possibilities for K-12 education."
"Outstanding analysis and writing."
"When Paul Mort studied the spread of successful innovations in public schools (early 20th-century), he found it took about 50 years, on average, for a new method to be widely implemented. Among developed nations, we rank 18th or worse in high-school graduation rates and in the bottom half in math, science and reading proficiency. Louisiana and Indiana have taken a major step in the right direction by making private schools that accept vouchers subject to standardized tests and public accountability. A few U.S. cities (most notably, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Denver) have replaced centralization of school management with decentralization, accountability for following rules to accountability for producing results, and monopolies with competition, Per author Osborne, they have also produced the fastest academic growth in the nation. His 'Reinventing America's Schools' describes in depth those cities' reforms - including the political struggles involved, what worked and what didn't, and how failures were addressed. Over the next 9 years, the RSD gradually turned them into charter schools operated by independent organizations free of most state and district rules but accountable for performance. In Denver, a decade ago the elected school board, frustrated by poor academic growth, embraced charters - giving most space in district buildings and encouraging those successful to replicate as fast as possible. Stanford University's Center for Research on Educational outcomes (CREDO) show that, on average, students who spend at least four years in charter schools gain an additional two months of learning in reading and more than two months in math every year, compared to similar students in traditional public schools. To stop the machines from firing teachers of the opposite party and hiring their own party members, reformers invented teacher tenure, strict pay scales determined by longevity, and protections of seniority. Her radicalization point came in 1995 while working as a school-board member judging high school students' college essays as part of a scholarship program. Corruption led the federal government to threaten taking away Title I money if the state did not intervene - a receiver was appointed, 24 district leaders indicted, and the board chairperson went to prison for taking $140,000 in bribes. Jacobs had moved to a state-level board; she proposed creating a special district to take over failed schools - and helped push through the constitutional amendment (two-thirds vote in the legislature, majority on a statewide ballot). Discipline became a reality - reinforced by requiring students walk on separate sides of the halls. During the first week of 9th grade everyone visited a college, and by the middle of their junior year they had toured at least 20, in seven states. Its Sci Academy became the highest-scoring nonselective high school in the city, and in 2015 53% of students scored a 20 or higher on the ACT. In 2011, a year-round program was created for former droupouts at Clark High - 20% were involved in the judicial system, 20% homeless, and 20% either pregnant or already a parent. KIPP's Renaissance High tracks graduates' GPAs, working hours, career goals, etc. To minimize cheating, charter schools up for renewal must arrange independent monitoring of state tests by a third party approved by the board. Board members often used their positions as steppingstones to higher office, engaged in patronage hiring, and got involved with every nitty-gritty detail. Michelle Rhee convinced the city council to convert her central office staff to at-will employment, then began laying people off. When she laid off hundreds of teachers, thousands rallied at protests organized by the AFL-CIO, the AFT, and the WTU. Rhee created a new evaluation system, called IMPACT (developed primarily by Jason Kamras) that used pupil improvement on test scores and observations by principals and master teachers as the most important rating factors. Those rated 'ineffective' were subject to immediate termination, minimally effective had one year to improve or lose their jobs. At first the union stonewalled her offer of more money and significant bonuses in return for giving up tenure. When she began firing teachers anyway, based on their IMPACT ratings, it made them realize they didn't have the protections they thought they had. Overall, she fired about 400 teachers for performance during her 3.5 years at the helm; Roughly half departed through terminations, layoffs, resignations, or retirements. She recruited high-performing principals, some from the charter sector, existing teachers rated lower than 'effective' lost their jobs if the new principal did not want them, while those rated 'effective' or higher who were not hired could retire with a pension boost, take a $25,000 buyout, or remain on salary for a year at a temporary assignment while looking for a permanent one. STEM, 'world cultures,' intensive arts focus, and contracted with charters to operate four failing district schools. Rhee's firing of numerous African-American teachers did not go over well, and her sponsor (Mayor Fenty) lost the primary. Only about 15% of teachers teach math, reading or ELA in grades covered by D.C.'s standardized test (PARCC). A recent innovation (from charter schools) is having a director of operations - allowing the principal to focus on academics. A computerized assignment system prohibits requiring applicants submit essays and transcripts, or revealing whether they have a disability. From 2007-08 through 2010-11, CREDO found charter students gained an average of 72 more days learning/year in reading than demographically and prior achievement public-school pupils. A recent innovation (from charter schools) is having a director of operations - allowing the principal to focus on academics. A computerized assignment system prohibits requiring applicants submit essays and transcripts, or revealing whether they have a disability. From 2007-08 through 2010-11, CREDO found charter students gained an average of 72 more days learning/year in reading than demographically and prior achievement public-school pupils. Results: Through 2014, the percentage of students scoring at or above grade level in basic skills increased from 33 to 48%, far faster than the state average. (Colorado switched to PARCC tests in 2015, comparisons to previous years are no longer possible.). The College Board named DPS as the national leader among districts with 50,000 or more pupils in expanding access to AP courses while also improving exam performance. Finally, charter schools have more freedom to innovate, and their own boards to protect them from DPS meddling. Reformers then pursued and won all four seats up in 2012 (creating a majority), and replaced the superintendent with someone who had elsewhere succeeded turning around a number of poor performing N.C. schools - with total autonomy. The state teachers union suggested allowing traditional IPS schools to convert to innovation status and the legislature agreed. The board hires and fires the principal,, sets the budget and pay scale, and chooses the school design."
"As a current school board member who has served on three different school boards for more than a dozen years, I and my fellow board members are continually frustrated with how hard it is for school districts and schools to change in a way that results in higher academic achievement for all students AND closes/reduces the achievement gaps."
"In these systems, the role of the central office dramatically changes from running schools and making key decisions top down to enabling great schools to grow and holding strugglers accountable while always ensuring that all students have fair access to good schools."
Best School Safety
you will learn about: • The early warning signs of abuse. • The nature of abusive thinking. • Myths about abusers. • Ten abusive personality types. • The role of drugs and alcohol. • What you can fix, and what you can’t. • And how to get out of an abusive relationship safely. Bancroft, a former codirector of Emerge, the first U.S. program for abusive men, and a 15-year veteran of work with abusive men, reminds readers that each year in this country, two to four million women are assaulted by their partners and that at least one out of three American women will be a victim of violence by a husband or boyfriend at some point in her life.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"In short, I wasted 35 years of my life with this man, who distorted reality and everything I knew to be true and tried his best to make me feel small and unworthy. He moved out of the house last week (I bought him out) and I have to say ... it is sad, but I've never felt more at peace with the decision and I am ALREADY much, much happier. NO ONE should have to live with someone who treats you like a child, or curses you out "just because that's the way he's feeling," or will not respect you or your career, or refuses to stop drinking or drugging, or who physically harms or threatens you."
"This book will stop making you feel sorry for your abuser."
"So, with a title like "angry and controlling men," they are more likely to pick up the book, thinking, "Hey, this might apply to the confusing situation I am facing." He can routinely blame her for everything that goes wrong in his life, or he can constantly critique her and tear her down, or he can call her names that when I tried to put them in this review, got it banned from Amazon. Abuse is not a binary kind of behavior that is only invoked when the fists fly, but a deeply ingrained, unrepentant attitude of ownership, entitlement, contempt and resentment that a man displays, not toward most people in his life, but toward "his" woman (including past women). This confusion is created by the abuser himself, in his highly successful attempts to justify himself to himself, to his victim, and to the people around him. Bancroft did not did start out with this assumption, by the way, but came to it after years of working with abusers in mandatory counseling groups. When he started out, he believed what the abusers told him about how their behavior was caused by their wives' failings, their traumatic childhoods, their unemployment, or the hurts done them by past girlfriends; that they didn't know what they were doing; that they "lost control." The abuser, meanwhile, is functional in his life at large (except when it comes to treating his wife well), and appears to be a sane, trustworthy person. Small wonder, then, that the abused woman, her friends, and society at large cannot figure out what her problem is. If they start from the assumption that the abuser is a decent guy who means well, they will never figure out the situation. For example, in one chapter Bancroft examines in some detail a frustrating conversation between a whiny, controlling man and his wife, which ends with him insisting on walking home in the cold, even though she would be willing to drive him. Of course, his main motive is to maintain the role of victim, to keep himself in the right and his wife in the wrong, so that he can tell himself (and tell everyone else later) how she "left him" to walk home in the cold. There is a fascinating, counterintuitive warning (late in the book), that women in abusive situations should not seek couples' counseling. The reassuring presence of the counselor might get the wife to open up and say things to, or about, her husband that she would never otherwise dream of uttering."
"Anger management will not help these people; they need to be in an abuse program. Because most abusers never change, the abuse program needs to consider the victims as their real clients, because they are the ones who will benefit most by feeling supported and validated, and they are a necessary component of the program to keep the abuser accountable. Interesting that the day after I read this in the book, I saw it on Facebook as a meme."
Best Federal Education Legislation
From one of the foremost authorities on education in the United States, former U.S. assistant secretary of education, an incisive, comprehensive look at today’s American school system that argues against those who claim it is broken and beyond repair; an impassioned but reasoned call to stop the privatization movement that is draining students and funding from our public schools. Refusing to embrace the formulas of left and right, she attacks politically correct speech codes as intelligently as she criticizes the free-market faith in competition. And this skepticism animates her broader critique in Reign of Error , a book that dispels the clouds of reform rhetoric to reveal the destructiveness of the privatization agenda.” —Jackson Lear, Commonweal. “No matter what side of the debate the reader is on, Ms. Ravitch provides a thought-provoking look at some of the major challenges facing public education today.” — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Ravtich’s critique of the corporate reformers’ manufactured agenda, along with the truly progressive alternatives she offers, shows us a way to begin the long haul toward improving democracy’s classrooms.” —Joseph Featherstone, The Nation. “Diane Ravitch [is] arguably our leading historian of primary and secondary education.” —Andrew Delbanco, The New York Review of Books. Ravitch’s candor stands in stark contrast to the bromides of the corporate reformers, who have pretty much left any attempts at integration out of their schemes.” —NEA.org (National Education Association). You will never find a more succinct and compelling book than Reign of Error , with a crystal clear analysis of the way in which our schools are being driven into the ground by the Billionaire Boys club of Gates, Broad, Walton, Murdoch, and Bloomberg, and other ideologues and opportunists eager to join in. Buy the book.” — The Huffington Post “I knew a lot about what happened to black public schools in Mississippi, but had concerns about how to go about building a better system. In Reign of Error , she reveals the shocking lack of evidence behind many of the radical experiments being forced on our public school children and families by tragically misguided politicians and non-educators. Most important, she lays out a vision of evidence-based, authentic education reforms that hold great promise for America to lead and inspire the world again. What Silent Spring and The Fate of the Earth did for the environmental and antinuclear movements, this book should do for the cause of improving America's public schools." “Diane Ravitch’s Reign of Error takes the myths surrounding public education head on and provides her readers with logic and reasoning sorely missing from the current debate. Ravitch also takes on the Billionaire Boys Club with swipes at their handmaidens of destruction, including Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, and Wendy Kopp, and the book provides the solutions that will change the trajectory away from so-called destructive innovation towards equitable, high quality education for all children.”. —Karen GJ Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"She also calls for small class size, banning for-profit charter schools, cooperation between charter schools and other public schools and providing the social and medical services poor children need to do well in school."
"Ms. Ravitch has my vote for Superintendent of Schools, has my support to become the next Education Department Secretary, and has my thanks for tirelessly working to correct the mistakes caused by educational privatization, online "education," and modern forms of charters that are misleading and abusive towards public schools."
""Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Dangers to America's Public Schools. ". Even despite the fact it was a bit dry and tedious on occasions, I found a lot of good information in it. I don't think there is anything wrong with Public Schools that a little time, money and interested people can't fix. All of my family have attended them from my Mother and Father both, in the early part of the last century to my Grandchildren the last of whom graduated in 2010. Then the privatization vultures move in for the kill and shove part of those funds to 'for profit schools' which they tout as being a cure-all for something they have deliberately created (an educational crisis). They are deliberately setting public schools up to fail when they start taking funds away. It's one the politician's oldest tricks when they want to get rid of a public institution...start starving it to death of funds to operate. Only a complete fool would try and sell the idea that economic advantages and poverty doesn't have something to do with children's abilities to learn. Where a lot of these people think Government can't do anything right...as far as I am concerned private businesses are far bigger screw ups. And there have been some huge ones from the privatization of the Iraq war that cost the taxpayer billions in wasted tax dollars that were thrown at a nonexistent problem, to the disaster I see in education these days."
"As a public school teacher and a strong advocate for public education, I believe this information must reach the general public."