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Interesting stories about nature and life in the 1910'ss and 1920'ss. With full-color illustrations accompanying each story, this third volume includes dramatic tales, selections on historic figures and delightful character building stories. For children ages 7-9.
A trenchant analysis of how public education is being destroyed in overt and deceptive ways—and how to fight back In the “vigorous, well-informed” (Kirkus Reviews) A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, the co-hosts of the popular education podcast Have You Heard expose the potent network of conservative elected officials, advocacy groups, funders, and think tanks that are pushing a radical vision to do away with public education. “Cut[ing] through the rhetorical fog surrounding a host of free-market reforms and innovations” (Mike Rose), Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire lay bare the dogma of privatization and reveal how it fits into the current context of right-wing political movements. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door “goes above and beyond the typical explanations” (SchoolPolicy.org), giving readers an up-close look at the policies—school vouchers, the war on teachers’ unions, tax credit scholarships, virtual schools, and more—driving the movement’s agenda. Called “well-researched, carefully argued, and alarming” by Library Journal, this smart, essential book has already incited a public reckoning on behalf of the millions of families served by the American educational system—and many more who stand to suffer from its unmaking. “Just as with good sci-fi,” according to Jacobin, “the authors make a compelling case that, based on our current trajectory, a nightmare future is closer than we think.”
The full-scale assault on public education threatens not just public education but American democracy itself. Public education as we know it is in trouble. Derek W. Black, a legal scholar and tenacious advocate, shows how major democratic and constitutional developments are intimately linked to the expansion of public education throughout American history. Schoolhouse Burningis grounded in pathbreaking, original research into how the nation, in its infancy, built itself around public education and, following the Civil War, enshrined education as a constitutional right that forever changed the trajectory of our democracy. Public education, alongside the right to vote, was the cornerstone of the recovery of the war-torn nation. Today's current schooling trends -- the declining commitment to properly fund public education and the well-financed political agenda to expand vouchers and charter schools -- present a major assault on the democratic norms that public education represents and risk undermining one of the unique accomplishments of American society.
A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An award-winning constitutional law scholar at the University of Chicago (who clerked for Judge Merrick B. Garland, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor) gives us an engaging and alarming book that aims to vindicate the rights of public school students, which have so often been undermined by the Supreme Court in recent decades. Judicial decisions assessing the constitutional rights of students in the nation’s public schools have consistently generated bitter controversy. From racial segregation to unauthorized immigration, from antiwar protests to compulsory flag salutes, from economic inequality to teacher-led prayer—these are but a few of the cultural anxieties dividing American society that the Supreme Court has addressed in elementary and secondary schools. The Schoolhouse Gate gives a fresh, lucid, and provocative account of the historic legal battles waged over education and illuminates contemporary disputes that continue to fracture the nation. Justin Driver maintains that since the 1970s the Supreme Court has regularly abdicated its responsibility for protecting students’ constitutional rights and risked transforming public schools into Constitution-free zones. Students deriving lessons about citizenship from the Court’s decisions in recent decades would conclude that the following actions taken by educators pass constitutional muster: inflicting severe corporal punishment on students without any procedural protections, searching students and their possessions without probable cause in bids to uncover violations of school rules, random drug testing of students who are not suspected of wrongdoing, and suppressing student speech for the viewpoint it espouses. Taking their cue from such decisions, lower courts have upheld a wide array of dubious school actions, including degrading strip searches, repressive dress codes, draconian “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies, and severe restrictions on off-campus speech. Driver surveys this legal landscape with eloquence, highlights the gripping personal narratives behind landmark clashes, and warns that the repeated failure to honor students’ rights threatens our basic constitutional order. This magisterial book will make it impossible to view American schools—or America itself—in the same way again.
This book – written for teacher educators, teachers and admirers of James Baldwin –employs his essays and speeches to discuss how the effects of race and racism enter the souls of African American students and become attached and difficult to dislodge. Yet, his essays also provide educators and students with purpose, meaning and suggestions for how to stand up against racism, develop an authentic self and fight oppression. Whereas this book takes advantage of the full body of Baldwin’s work – fiction, nonfiction, interviews, lectures, speeches and letters – its foundation is three speeches James Baldwin gave in the 1960s on the education of African American children and African American and European American race relations in the United States. The purpose of education, defying myths, freedom, willful ignorance and developing identity are discussed through a Baldwinian lens. African American and European American teachers are encouraged to "Go for Broke" as this book explores the important role Baldwin’s work can play in schools and universities.
Discusses the friendship between Booker T. Wahington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute, and Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company and how, through their friendship, they were able to build five thousand schools for African Americans in the Southern states.
This engaging book examines the history of the one-room school and how successive generations of Americans have remembered--and just as often misremembered--this powerful national icon.
Approximately thirty-seven million American children attend elementary school, but only 20 of these children do so in one of the most remote national parks in the lower 48. From fall 2002 through spring 2006 my husband and I lived and taught in Big Bend National Park, Texas. This is the story of our experience in this remarkable school. One hundred miles from a supermarket, a hospital, or a Pizza Hut, my students and I laughed, learned, and flourished. In addition to learning reading, writing, and arithmetic in this rare world which moves at a pace and is imbued with the serenity of an earlier time, our adventures included bus trips, video conferences, school plays, river voyages, re-vegetation projects, and desert hikes. It is my wish that through these pages you will experience some of the joy that enriched my life during my years at San Vicente Elementary School. This account also includes glimpses into some behind-the-scenes activities and events that occurred in this particular national park. Whether attending presentations of the scientists who conduct research in the park, hunting down a mountain lion that has attacked a tourist, or relocating a rattlesnake retrieved from the school playground, the park rangers and interpreters stayed busy. Yet they made time to share their expertise with my students whenever called upon. Some of the history of the Big Bend region, along with its geology, flora, and fauna is also included. This area of the State retains echoes of earlier times -times when this vast, rugged, remote, and hauntingly beautiful part of Texas was indeed, the last frontier. Come travel around the Bend with me and listen to this Texas teacher's love song. Pat Seawell 's Texas roots run deep. An ancestor fought and died at the Alamo, and she grew up on a South Texas cattle ranch. Her teaching career spans five decades, four states, and three continents. She has bachelor's and Ph.D. degrees from The University of Texas at Austin and a master's from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. After two retirements from public school teaching, she is currently working as an assistant professor in the education department at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas. While she has enjoyed teaching multiple subjects and grade levels, Pat's real passion is her students. For them she applauds, for them she cheers. She lives with her husband of 47 years on a ranch, observing wildlife, collecting beautiful rocks, and dreaming of returning to the park as a geologist.
