When Schools Close

An awe-inspiring autobiographical picture book about a young African American girl who lived during the shutdown of public schools in Farmville, Virginia, following the landmark civil rights case Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. Most people think that the Brown vs. Board of Education decision of 1954 meant that schools were integrated with deliberate speed. But the children of Prince Edward County located in Farmville, Virginia, who were prohibited from attending formal schools for five years knew differently, including Yolanda. Told by Yolanda Gladden herself, cowritten by Dr. Tamara Pizzoli and with illustrations by Keisha Morris, When the Schools Shut Down is a true account of the unconstitutional effort by white lawmakers of this small Virginia town to circumvent racial justice by denying an entire generation of children an education. Most importantly, it is a story of how one community triumphed together, despite the shutdown.

A clarion call to shut down the business school!

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges to the nation's K-12 education system. The rush to slow the spread of the virus led to closures of schools across the country, with little time to ensure continuity of instruction or to create a framework for deciding when and how to reopen schools. States, districts, and schools are now grappling with the complex and high-stakes questions of whether to reopen school buildings and how to operate them safely if they do reopen. These decisions need to be informed by the most up-to-date evidence about the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19; about the impacts of school closures on students and families; and about the complexities of operating school buildings as the pandemic persists. Reopening K-12 Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prioritizing Health, Equity, and Communities provides guidance on the reopening and operation of elementary and secondary schools for the 2020-2021 school year. The recommendations of this report are designed to help districts and schools successfully navigate the complex decisions around reopening school buildings, keeping them open, and operating them safely.

“Failing schools. Underprivileged schools. Just plain bad schools.” That’s how Eve L. Ewing opens Ghosts in the Schoolyard: describing Chicago Public Schools from the outside. The way politicians and pundits and parents of kids who attend other schools talk about them, with a mix of pity and contempt. But Ewing knows Chicago Public Schools from the inside: as a student, then a teacher, and now a scholar who studies them. And that perspective has shown her that public schools are not buildings full of failures—they’re an integral part of their neighborhoods, at the heart of their communities, storehouses of history and memory that bring people together. Never was that role more apparent than in 2013 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced an unprecedented wave of school closings. Pitched simultaneously as a solution to a budget problem, a response to declining enrollments, and a chance to purge bad schools that were dragging down the whole system, the plan was met with a roar of protest from parents, students, and teachers. But if these schools were so bad, why did people care so much about keeping them open, to the point that some would even go on a hunger strike? Ewing’s answer begins with a story of systemic racism, inequality, bad faith, and distrust that stretches deep into Chicago history. Rooting her exploration in the historic African American neighborhood of Bronzeville, Ewing reveals that this issue is about much more than just schools. Black communities see the closing of their schools—schools that are certainly less than perfect but that are theirs—as one more in a long line of racist policies. The fight to keep them open is yet another front in the ongoing struggle of black people in America to build successful lives and achieve true self-determination.

School improvement, like motherhood, has many advocates. Everyone is for it, without having to campaign actively on its behalf. And just as the 100% of people who have had mothers think they know how mothering could be done better, so the (nearly) 100% of people who have been pupils in schools, or have even taught in or managed them, think they know how schools can be im proved. More precisely, they are sure that schools ought to be improved. The trouble is that they propose a staggering, conflicting range of methods of improving the schools, from ;'back to the woodshed" to teacher merit pay, a stiffer curriculum, a stronger tax base, reorganization, a more humane climate, "teacher-proof" innovations, community involvement-the list is nearly end less. Furthermore, the issues are not merely technical, but normative and po litical. The term improvement is itself problematic. One person's version of improvement is another's version of wastefulness or even of worsening the schools. Furthermore, the versions that win out in any particular school are not Improvement sometimes turns out to be merely a necessarily technically "best. " code word for the directives that administrators have successfully put into place, or for the agreements that teachers have lobbied into being. How much do we really know about school improvement? The available research literature is quite substantial, but not as helpful as it might be.

Confident Parents, Confident Kids lays out an approach for helping parents—and the kids they love—hone their emotional intelligence so that they can make wise choices, connect and communicate well with others (even when patience is thin), and become socially conscious and confident human beings. How do we raise a happy, confident kid? And how can we be confident that our parenting is preparing our child for success? Our confidence develops from understanding and having a mastery over our emotions (aka emotional intelligence)—and helping our children do the same. Like learning to play a musical instrument, we can fine-tune our ability to skillfully react to those crazy, wonderful, big feelings that naturally arise from our child’s constant growth and changes, moving from chaos to harmony. We want our children to trust that they can conquer any challenge with hard work and persistence; that they can love boundlessly; that they will find their unique sense of purpose; and they will act wisely in a complex world. This book shows you how. With author and educator Jennifer Miller as your supportive guide, you'll learn: the lies we’ve been told about emotions, how they shape our choices, and how we can reshape our parenting decisions in better alignment with our deepest values. how to identify the temperaments your child was born with so you can support those tendencies rather than fight them. how to align your biggest hopes and dreams for your kids with specific skills that can be practiced, along with new research to support those powerful connections. about each age and stage your child goes through and the range of learning opportunities available. how to identify and manage those big emotions (that only the parenting process can bring out in us!) and how to model emotional intelligence for your children. how to deal with the emotions and influences of your choir—the many outside individuals and communities who directly impact your child’s life, including school, the digital world, extended family, neighbors, and friends. Raising confident, centered, happy kids—while feeling the same way about yourself—is possible with Confident Parents, Confident Kids.