Education Policy Perils

Education Policy Perils provides educators and those interested in the future of public education with research-based and practical analyses of some of the foremost issues facing public schools today. The collection, written by experienced scholar-practitioners, offers insights that include nuanced descriptions of various challenges facing educators and recommendations for overcoming them with an eye toward more successful policy and better implementation. The authors apply their expertise to a range of issues from international testing to policy challenges related to curriculum on the state and national levels. This volume positions ongoing debates within the wider context of an education landscape struggling to displace junk-science ideology with empirical research. The scope and sequence combined with the expertise of the contributors make this volume a vital resource for educators at all levels during a pivotal time of major changes in education policy.

This book examines how the use of the “at-risk” category and label creates problems for students and teachers. Drawing from research across various education sites, the author illustrates how educators recognize the label’s potential to redress issues of equity, but warns that it can also stigmatize the students so labeled. Brown explores how the labeling and subsequent practices by teachers and schools actually affect students, such as classifying many individuals as deficient. The text provides a historical overview, discusses the role of federal education policy and teaching, and includes tools to help readers acquire more complex, critical understandings of risk in educational practice. After the “At-Risk” Label not only challenges the education community to reorient itself to a more equitable discourse, it provides a framework for changing the structural conditions of schooling to better serve all students. Book Features: Offers a critical appraisal of how schools, policy, and teachers may be complicit in exacerbating conditions that lead to risk. Shows how race and class biases might be manifested in the “at-risk” identification process.Outlines a framework for making sense of, and acting in response to, risk that attends to both the individual and the institution. Provides a set of key questions, terms, and a list of extended activities in each chapter. “In this book, Keffrelyn Brown takes the common notion of ‘at-risk’ and turns it on its head. It is imperative that people who deal with children and teens grapple with the centrality of her notions. This is a must read!” —Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin–Madison “In this important and timely book, Keffrelyn Brown provides a much-needed basis for radically rethinking whether risk can be part of a critical social justice project in education.” —David Gillborn, University of Birmingham, UK “This book represents an audaciously genuine call to know more about, to see more in, and do more for students who have somehow amassed the label ‘at-risk!’” —H. Richard Milner IV, University of Pittsburgh

This is a book about what many teachers know but are increasingly being prevented from talking about: that real education always involves a risk. The risk is there because, as W. B. Yeats has put it, education is not about filling a bucket but about lighting a fire. It is there because students are not to be seen as objects to be moulded and disciplined, but as subjects of action and responsibility. The Beautiful Risk of Education is organised around a critical discussion of seven key educational concepts: creativity, communication, teaching, learning, emancipation, democracy, and virtuosity. By opposing the risk aversion that characterises many contemporary educational policies and practices, Gert J.J. Biesta makes a strong argument for giving risk a central place in our educational endeavours and brings risk taking to the forefront of a critical pedagogical practice.

Risk Society and School Educational Policy explores the impact of risk society on policy in the US, UK and Australia through both practical and theoretical perspectives. The book develops an in-depth understanding of risk society itself, and guides the reader in applying this knowledge to the problem of how this impacts policy and practice in school education. Drawing on work by Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens, Rodwell explores the development of risk society as a field of interest, discussing its history, contemporary significance and links with neoliberalism, school education, and both mainstream and social media. He also examines its impact on government policies and the practical implications of how this impacts the educational experiences of children around the globe today. A book for policy professionals, researchers, academics and postgraduate students interested in Education Studies, Theory and Policy, and International and Comparative Education, Risk Society and School Educational Policy is the first international academic monograph published in the field.

This publication contributes to the countries' efforts to adjust their education reforms to the EC principles as outlined in the EU "Detailed Work Programme on the Follow-up of the Objectives of Education and Training Systems in Europe".

The Risky Business of Education Policy focuses commentary and analysis on some of the most pressing policy challenges facing public school educators and those invested in a healthy, vibrant public-school system. The book shares insights and makes recommendations from leading scholar-practitioners, namely from educational leadership and science education, on ways to ponder, navigate, and challenge serious policy issues. The chapters present important policy topics and critical analysis of the topics from the authorial perspective of experienced educators leading the preparation of future school leaders and teachers. Through fast paced, user-friendly chapters, contributors grapple with an education reform policy issue of the day, reflecting what is contentious territory while wading through it. These educational researchers also make evidence-informed practical recommendations for educators and policymakers on how to better approach the policy challenges presented, so public education can be improved for all children. Each chapter contains stimulating ideas, useful information, and practical tips for school practitioners, higher education faculty, and constituent groups.

When should children begin their digital diet? Does the use of new technology hinder or enhance children's literacy development? Do new technologies give children new abilities or undermine their skills and identities? Are learners safe in modern online educational spaces? Kieron Sheehy and Andrew Holliman have assembled expert contributors from around the world to discuss these questions and have divided the book into three parts: early engagement with new technologies: decisions, dangers and data new technology: supporting all learners or divisive tools global and cultural reflections on educational technology. Education and New Technologies focuses on aspects of education where the use of twenty-first-century technologies has been particularly controversial, contemplating the possible educational benefits alongside potential negative impacts on learners. Topics covered include: e-books and their influence on literacy skills games-based learning the impact of new technologies on abilities and disabilities learning analytics and the use of large-scale learner data cyberbullying intelligent technologies and the connected learner. A twenty-first-century book for twenty-first-century concerns, Education and New Technologies presents up-to-date research and clear, engaging insight about the relationship between technology and how we learn.

This book examines historical approaches and current research and practice related to the education of adolescents placed at risk of school failure as a result of social and economic conditions. One major goal is to expand the intellectual exchange among researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and concerned citizens on factors influencing the achievement of poor and minority youth, specifically students in middle and high schools. Another is to encourage increased dialogue about policies and practices that can make a difference in educational opportunities and outcomes for these students. Although the chapters in this volume are not exhaustive, they represent an array of theoretical and methodological approaches that provide readers with new and diverse ways to think about issues of educational equality and opportunity in the United States. A premise that runs through each chapter is that school success is possible for poor and minority adolescents if adequate support from the school, family, and community is available. *The conceptual approach (Section I) places the research and practice on students placed at risk in a historical context and sets the stage for an important reframing of current definitions, research, policies, and practices aimed at this population. *Multiple research methodologies (Sections II and III) allow for comparisons across racial and ethnic groups as well as within groups, and contribute to different and complementary insights. Section III, "Focus on African-American Students," specifically addresses gender and social class differences among African-American adolescents. *Current reform strategies presently being implemented in schools throughout the United States are presented and discussed (Part IV). These strategies or programs highlight how schools, families, and communities can apply research findings like the ones this book presents, thus bridging the often wide gap between social science research and educational practice.