Begun in 1982, the Algebra Project is transforming math education in twenty-five cities. Founded on the belief that math-science literacy is a prerequisite for full citizenship in society, the Project works with entire communities-parents, teachers, and especially students-to create a culture of literacy around algebra, a crucial stepping-stone to college math and opportunity.Telling the story of this remarkable program, Robert Moses draws on lessons from the 1960s Southern voter registration he famously helped organize: 'Everyone said sharecroppers didn't want to vote. It wasn't until we got them demanding to vote that we got attention. Today, when kids are falling wholesale through the cracks, people say they don't want to learn. We have to get the kids themselves to demand what everyone says they don't want.'We see the Algebra Project organizing community by community. Older kids serve as coaches for younger students and build a self-sustained tradition of leadership. Teachers use innovative techniques. And we see the remarkable success stories of schools like the predominately poor Hart School in Bessemer, Alabama, which outscored the city's middle-class flagship school in just three years.Radical Equations provides a model for anyone looking for a community-based solution to the problems of our disadvantaged schools.

    

    With clear and accessible language, Carl guides you through the three main parts of a writing conference, and shows you the teaching moves and intentional language that can be used in each one. He helps you understand: - how to get started with conferring, or improve your existing conferences - how to use conferences to meet the diverse needs of your student writers - how to fit conferences into your busy writing workshop schedule. More than 25 videos bring the content to life, while Teacher Tips, Q&A's, and Recommended Reading lists provide everything you need to help you become a better writing teacher.

    Supreme Court handed down a 5–4 verdict in Milliken v. Bradley, thereby blocking the state of Michigan from merging the Detroit public school system with those of the surrounding suburbs. This decision effectively walled off underprivileged students in many American cities, condemning them to a system of racial and class segregation and destroying their chances of obtaining a decent education.In Hope and Despair in the American City, Gerald Grant compares two cities—his hometown of Syracuse, New York, and Raleigh, North Carolina—in order to examine the consequences of the nation’s ongoing educational inequities. The school system in Syracuse is a slough of despair, the one in Raleigh a beacon of hope. Grant argues that the chief reason for Raleigh’s educational success is the integration by social class that occurred when the city voluntarily merged with the surrounding suburbs in 1976 to create the Wake County Public School System. By contrast, the primary cause of Syracuse’s decline has been the growing class and racial segregation of its metropolitan schools, which has left the city mired in poverty.Hope and Despair in the American City is a compelling study of urban social policy that combines field research and historical narrative in lucid and engaging prose. The result is an ambitious portrait—sometimes disturbing, often inspiring—of two cities that exemplify our nation’s greatest educational challenges, as well as a passionate exploration of the potential for school reform that exists for our urban schools today.

    Now, in Leading with Focus, he shows administrators, principals, and other education leaders how to apply his model to the work of running schools and districts. In this companion to his previous book, Schmoker offers* An overview of the case for simple, focused school and district leadership--demonstrating its power for vastly improving the work of teachers and leaders.* Examples of real schools and districts that have embraced focused leadership--and the incredible results for student learning.* A practical, flexible, and easy-to-follow implementation guide for ensuring focused leadership in schools and districts.All students deserve to learn in schools where educators eschew distractions and superfluous activities to concentrate on what's most important. To that end, this book is an essential resource for leaders ready to streamline their practice and focus their efforts on radically improving student learning.

    Despite our best intentions, grades seem to reflect student compliance more than student learning and engagement. In the process, we inadvertently subvert the learning process. After careful research and years of experiences with grading as a teacher and a parent, Cathy Vatterott examines and debunks traditional practices and policies of grading in K -12 schools. She offers a new paradigm for standards-based grading that focuses on student mastery of content and gives concrete examples from elementary, middle, and high schools. Rethinking Grading will show all educators how standards-based grading can authentically reflect student progress and learning--and significantly improve both teaching and learning.

    With these proven, practical coaching-conversation techniques, school leaders can engage their school communities to work collaboratively toward total transformation. This research-based handbook helps school leaders:Develop open, reflective conversations with staff members Motivate staff Adopt new habits for working with teachers, staff, and students Utilize the power of committed listening and non-judgmental feedback Create positive changes in how people think and interact

    This approach ignores the reality that inequity itself causes trauma, and that schools often heighten inequities when implementing trauma-informed practices that are not based in educational equity.In this fresh look at trauma-informed practice, Alex Shevrin Venet urges educators to shift equity to the center as they consider policies and professional development. Using a framework of six principles for equity-centered trauma-informed education, Venet offers practical action steps that teachers and school leaders can take from any starting point, using the resources and influence at their disposal to make shifts in practice, pedagogy, and policy. Overthrowing inequitable systems is a process, not an overnight change. But transformation is possible when educators work together, and teachers can do more than they realize from within their own classrooms.

    Keeping themorganized can be a challenge, but an organized classroom is essential and allows students and the teacher to fully focus on learning by eliminating distractions. Organized Teacher, Happy Classroom provides practical, proven methods for maintaining an organized classroom throughout the entire school year.Inside you’ll find:• Strategies for managing students’ papers, curriculum material, and essential paperwork• Time management tips to maximize your instruction time and lesson planning• Organizing systems you can teach your students to improve self reliance andaccountability• Checklists for starting and ending the year well organized• Helpful forms and templates you can use in your classroom• Plans for arranging a classroom that promotes positive student participation• Support to simplify your classroom• Efficient storage solutions for all teacher and student materialsWhether you teach primary, intermediate, middle school or high school, this bookwill help you organize your time, paperwork, and classroom spaces.

    It can't start from scratch, and it can't fire all its teachers and principals when students do poorly. Great charter schools can only serve a tiny minority of students. Whether we like it or not, most of our youngsters willcontinue to be educated in mainstream public schools.The good news, as David L. Kirp reveals in Improbable Scholars, is that there's a sensible way to rebuild public education and close the achievement gap for all students. Indeed, this is precisely what's happening in a most unlikely place: Union City, New Jersey, a poor, crowded Latino communityjust across the Hudson from Manhattan. The school district--once one of the worst in the state--has ignored trendy reforms in favor of proven game-changers like quality early education, a word-soaked curriculum, and hands-on help for teachers. When beneficial new strategies have emerged, like usingsophisticated data-crunching to generate pinpoint assessments to help individual students, they have been folded into the mix.The results demand that we take notice--from third grade through high school, Union City scores on the high-stakes state tests approximate the statewide average. In other words, these inner-city kids are achieving just as much as their suburban cousins in reading, writing, and math. What's even moreimpressive, nearly ninety percent of high school students are earning their diplomas and sixty percent of them are going to college. Top students are winning national science awards and full rides at Ivy League universities. These schools are not just good places for poor kids. They are good placesfor kids, period.Improbable Scholars offers a playbook--not a prayer book--for reform that will dramatically change our approach to reviving public education.

    That’s why thousands of teachers and child-care providers have turned to the solutions in Setting Limits in the Classroom. This fully updated and expanded third edition offers the most up-to-date alternatives to punishment and permissiveness—moving beyond traditional methods that wear you down and get you nowhere.Topics include:• Eliminating power struggles and handling disruptions quickly• Establishing an effective environment for learning• Using natural and logical consequences to support your rules• Conducting proactive, focused parent conferences• New research and techniques for supporting special-needs childrenWith its new focus on younger students and special tools for handling “strong-willed” children, this edition offers schoolteachers the tools they need to gain control of their classrooms—respectfully and effectively.  From the Trade Paperback edition.

    The book is divided into three parts: Out of the Gate contains easy ideas to help you get started, More Reasons to Write shows you how to teach across genre, both fiction and nonfiction writing, and Refining Writing addresses everything you need to know about revision, grammar, punctuation, and assessment. In every chapter you'll find two running features: 1) “Try This”, ready-to-use lessons for you and your students; and 2) “Yeah But” where Barry answers the real questions and concerns he's collected from teachers around the country.

    You cannot afford to be apolitical at work if you have any aspirations for advancement. The only way to avoid politics is to avoid people—by finding an out-of-the-way corner where you can do your job. Of course, it’s the same job you’ll likely be doing for the rest of your career.In any job, when you reach a certain level of technical competence, politics is what makes all the difference with regard to success. At that point, it is indeed all politics. Everyday brilliant people take a backseat to their politically adept colleagues by failing to win crucial support for their ideas. Sometimes politics involves going around or bending rules, but more typically it’s about positioning your ideas in a favorable light, and knowing what to say, and how and when to say it.…Keep in mind that people benefit from perpetuating the image of politics as something you either know or you don’t. Ignore them. Political acumen is largely learned from observation. And then it’s a matter of practice, practice, practice. When a journalist suggested that golfing great Gary Player was very lucky, he replied: “It’s funny, but the more I practice, the luckier I get.” The same is true of politics.An indispensable guide to mastering the ins and outs of office politics—the single most important factor in getting ahead in your careerAs management professor and consultant Kathleen Reardon explains in her new book, It's All Politics, talent and hard work alone will not get you to the top. What separates the winners from the losers in corporate life is politics.As Reardon explains, the most talented and accomplished employees often take a backseat to their politically adept coworkers, losing ground in the race to get ahead—sometimes even losing their jobs. Why? Because they’ve failed to manage the important relationships with the people who can best reward their creativity and intelligence. To determine whether you need a crash course in Office Politics 101, ask yourself the following questions:Do I get credit for my ideas?Do I know how to deal with a difficult colleague?Do I get the plum assignments?Do I have a mentor?Do I say no gracefully and pick my battles wisely?Am I in the loop?Reardon has interviewed hundreds of employees, from successful veterans to aspiring hopefuls, examining why some people who work hard and effectively at their jobs fall behind, while those who are adept at “reading the office tea leaves” forge ahead. Being politically savvy doesn’t mean being unethical or devious. At heart, it’s about listening to and relating to others, and making choices that advance everyone’s goals. Like it or not, when it comes to work, it’s all politics. And politics is all about knowing what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to.

    What would it take to change the lives of poor children—not one by one, through heroic interventions and occasional miracles, but in big numbers, and in a way that could be replicated nationwide? The question led him to create the Harlem Children’s Zone, a ninety-seven-block laboratory in central Harlem where he is testing new and sometimes controversial ideas about poverty in America. His conclusion: if you want poor kids to be able to compete with their middle-class peers, you need to change everything in their lives—their schools, their neighborhoods, even the child-rearing practices of their parents.Whatever It Takes is a tour de force of reporting, an inspired portrait not only of Geoffrey Canada but of the parents and children in Harlem who are struggling to better their lives, often against great odds. Carefully researched and deeply affecting, this is a dispatch from inside the most daring and potentially transformative social experiment of our time.

    QRI-5