Fixing Truancy Now

Truancy is a complex issue that continues to plague schools, and many blame truancy problems on students, parents, and socioeconomic factors. However, truancy is more than juvenile delinquents skipping school to have fun or be with friends. In Fixing Truancy Now: Inviting Students Back to Class, author Bruce S. Cooperposits that truancy is an indication that school curricula and pedagogy are not serving students’ needs as well as they should, especially when it comes to ethnic minority students and English language learners. This book explores: different types of truancy; major research in the field; and how teachers, school leaders, and students can work together in solving this problem. Ultimately this book offers hope that teachers, parents, and school leaders can find solutions to this multifaceted problem through collaborative problem-solving.

The concept of “visionary” leadership is defined and applied in this book, as “supervision in schools” requires a level of “SUPER VISION” that can be best developed through quality leadership, mentoring -- and mutual ideas, and support -- for adding more value to the school. This book shows just how vision is important and useful in all schools and districts. Time has thus come to find, build, and use high-quality visionary school leadership in its many dimensions; thus, this book takes at least ten different views (in the chapters) of the visionary roles and functions of education leadership in K-12 -- building on the roles, theories, and visionary actions of key players in the schools. No single perspective is enough, as all views must work in concert to the benefit of teachers and students, today. School leaders, moreover, need to have their own vision about the following: (a) what their work entails; (b) their school should be and look like; and (c) what their staff and students (and schools) can achieve.

Understanding the Power and Politics of Public Education examines statistical studies that demonstrate the impact of environmental issues on cognitive development. Through documented research in areas of health care, nutrition, pollution, community and family experiences, it illustrates the educational outcome and effects of poverty. It also explores the role of family socio-economic status and compares the educational readiness of the more and less affluent.

Mentoring with Meaning, and its forthcoming companion, Making Mentoring Work, will help educators to mentor or to be mentored effectively in our schools. We all have had mentors, those key adults from family, work, and/or schools, who have assisted us in learning. Mentors help us to become good adults, skilled and able professionals, and contributing member of community and society. This book seeks to help everyone, educators in particular, to be mentored and to be a mentor.

Higher education must implement new ways of achieving social justice and performing the business of education to survive the impending shakeout stemming from increasing competition for enrollment, operating costs, and price sensitivity plus decreasing state aid, net tuition, endowment income, and college-bound high school graduates. Universities that survive the shakeout will achieve financial sustainability, educational excellence, and social justice while providing equal educational opportunity and resource equity by implementing the book’s best practices, strategies, and holistic budgeting model.

Action Research in the Classroom: Helping Teachers Assess and Improve their Work guides teacher-researchers through the process of using action research in their practice to improve students’ learning and teachers’ teaching. The book uses actual classroom examples to assist aspiring, new, and veteran teachers and those who support them (administrators, department chairpersons, and mentors) in using a six-step process L.E.A.D.E.R. to successfully accomplish and share research conducted by actual classroom teachers. Each step in the L.E.A.D.E.R. process -- (1) L=Look at the Problem, (2) E=Examine what we know; (3) A=Acquire knowledge of school problem-solving; (4) D=Devise a plan for improvement; (5) E=Execute the plan; and, (6) R=Repeat steps and processes as needed -- can guide teachers, administrators, and even parents – and students – in solving their own problems and improving their learning and teaching.

Sound school finance is integral to the provision of a quality education. Indeed, a school district’s budget is the financial representation of its educational plan. Thus, a clarion alert for all teachers: “if it’s not in your budget, it won’t be in your classroom.” However, sound school finance is increasingly challenging in an era of scarce resources. This book provides an in-depth understanding of fundamental practices, processes, and lessons learned will benefit not only all school administrators, personnel, parents, students, and other stakeholders, but also undergird the provision of an excellent education. This book will focus on key building blocks essential for the provision of an excellent education. The value proposition inherent in this book works well for all schools, districts, students, and school stakeholders regardless of location, type, and demographic mix. The components of sound school finance that are increasingly important in an era of scarce financial, material, and human resources are provided in this book.