Common Sense School Reform

Forget everything you think you know about school reform. Cutting through the cant, sentiment, and obfuscation characterizing the current school reform debate, Frederick M. Hess lacerates the conventional "status quo" reform efforts and exposes the naivete underlying reform strategies that rest on solutions like class size reduction, small schools, and enhanced professional development. He explains that real improvement requires a bracing regime of common sense reforms that create a culture of competence by rewarding excellence, punishing failure, and giving educators the freedom and flexibility to do their work. He documents the scope of the challenges we face and then provides concrete recommendations for addressing them through reforms to promote accountability, competition, a 21st-century workforce, effective school leadership, and sensible reinvention. Engagingly written and drawing on real world experiences and examples, Common Sense School Reform will generate debate and help set the agenda for the future.

This first full account of curriculum policy formulation in 1990s Ontario helps readers understand the real-life experiences of policymakers both within the province and internationally. Having worked as a policy analyst for the Government of Ontario, a public school teacher, and a university professor, author Laura Elizabeth Pinto is uniquely positioned to tackle the key issues of policy formulation: the politics and tensions among different policy actors; the relationships between democracy in education and in policy formation; and the hidden role of privatization. Based on interviews with key policy actors, including ministry bureaucrats, curriculum policy writers, stakeholder consultation participants, and political staffers, Curriculum Reform in Ontario provides a critique of conventional policy formulation processes. Pinto also suggests possibilities for more participatory approaches to policy formulation that can better support the critical role played by schools in creating democratic societies.

All students are different. They show up on the first day of school with different strengths and weaknesses as well as varied levels of readiness and motivation. For teachers to continue to believe they can address all these differences with one lesson for the whole class for the majority of the school day is folly. This practice is simply unfair to our students and must change if our schools are ever to realize legitimate education reform. This book attempts to address the parameters surrounding this issue while also offering strategies as to how this can be accomplished, PreK-16. Teachers should not be hesitant to attempt the model described herein because of its seeming complexity. It's not as difficult as it may appear and can be implemented incrementally into your school day. Once established, it's no more work than a traditional classroom. Some parents will be thrilled to know their child will never have to wait for the rest of the class to catch up to their pace of learning. Other parents will be equally pleased to realize their child will not have to struggle in an attempt to keep up with the rest of the class; that if their child needs more time to learn a lesson or concept, they'll have it. In short, it's a win/win for all students. As the orchestrator of this environment, teachers will feel a much greater sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. They will conclude they have successfully met the needs of all their students regardless of how fast or slow each one moves through the curriculum.

Helping vulnerable children develop their full potential is an attractive idea with broad common-sense appeal. However, child well-being is a broad concept, and the legislative mandate for addressing well-being in the context of the current child welfare system is not particularly clear. This volume asserts that finding a place for well-being on the list of outcomes established to manage the child welfare system is not as easy as it first appears. The overall thrust of this argument is that policy should be evidence-based, and the available evidence is a primary focus of the book. Because policymakers have to make decisions that allocate resources, a basic understanding of incidence in the public health tradition is important, as is evidence that speaks to the question of what works clinically. The rest of the book addresses the evidence. Chapter 2 integrates bio-ecological and public health perspectives to give the evidence base coherence. Chapters 3 and 4 combine evidence from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, the Multistate Foster Care Data Archive, and the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being to offer an unprecedented profile of children as they enter the child welfare system. Chapters 5 and 6 address the broad question of what works. A concluding chapter focuses on policy and future directions, suggesting that children starting out, children starting school, and children starting adolescence are high-risk populations for which explicit strategies have to be formed. This timely volume offers useful insights into the child welfare system and will be of particular interest to policymakers, academics with an interest in Child Welfare Policy, Social Work educators, and Child Advocates.

Drawing on his own experience teaching diverse grades and subjects, Kevin Kumashiro examines aspects of teaching and learning toward social justice, and suggests concrete implications for K-12 teachers and teacher educators.

There are times in today's educational world when it seems as if common sense has lost its place as a factor in critical decision making. This book strives to provide alternative, practical, and commonsense solutions to decision making in several traditional areas of education. Intended for professional leaders in education, including administrators and teachers, the chapters are cleverly divided into stories, theory, and practice. It is a myth that experience always equates to quality and that creating successful school change can start with anyone, anywhere. Research and best practice can work hand in hand with common sense to bridge the gap between today's educational world and the days of the one-room schoolhouse. Teachers and administrators interested in commonsense practice will also be left with a reminder of why they got into the game of education in the first place and why the field cannot go forward without them.