Class Struggle: What's Wrong (and Right) With America's Best Public High Schools Jay Mathews HC $25.00 Order now		Taking on a topic very few academics or journalists have explored, Jay Mathews spent three years investigating America's most elite public high schools. In the course of his research, he uncovered what these schools were doing right (and wrong), thinking he could apply their formulae for success to underachieving public high schools. His research led him to question many of his assumptions about what makes these high schools stand above the rest, finding that even these well-endowed, highly regarded institutions, students suffer from the same kind of "expectation gap" that plagues our poorest schools. According to Mathews, by placing unnecessarily low expectations on all but the best, brightest, and wealthiest students (the Ivy bound), many of these schools squash the potential of the rest. Sifting through the rubble of inflated reputations and misinformation, Mathew compiled his own list of the country's best high schools, based on what he calls the "Challenge Index." And he provides students and parents with a guide for quantifying the level of challenge at their high schools. An informative, clear, timely book.

Waiting for a Miracle James P. Comer Paperback $13.95 Order now		In this insightful and engaging examination of the contemporary state of our schools and or society, James Comer, a leader in the school reform movement, reveals his strategies for solving the problems in the American educational system. According to Comer, real school change can only come about if it is preceded and accompanied by a comprehensive shift in our national mind-set. To Comer, this means a transformation in the roles family and community play in the life of a child. Beginning with an account of his own experiences growing up poor and black in America, Comer draws on his years of educational activism and community involvment to demonstrate how we can make our schools the most important vehicle for change in our society. Philosophically provocative and intellectually adroit, this book is also full of real-life strategies that Comer has employed to bring about dramatic change in the classroom. A crucial, timely book.

Teaching Stories Judy Logan HC $19.00 Order now		As a result of the outfall of the so-called culture wars, there has also been a recent re-examination and questioning of the "self-esteem" movement. Many on the traditional, conservative side of the debate claim that the emphasis on promoting self-esteem and self-expression has produced lazy, underachieving, self-absorbed children. Judy Logan presents a formidable challenge to that conclusion. Her teaching methods are based on the notion that if students are allowed to explore who they are and express their passions, interests, and dreams in a classroom setting, they will blossom both academically and personally. These methods have produced tremendous results in her classroom, thrusting Logan into the spotlight of national acclaim and recognition. In a collection of stories based on her thirty years of experience as a middle school teacher, Logan shows how the adolescent years can be a time of tremendous emotional, intellectual, and spiritual growth, if these young people are given the right stimuli and freedom. Triumphant and inspirational, her stories explore the possibilities of American public education, for adolescents and everyone.

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom bell hooks PB $17.99 Order now		From one of the country's most vocal and controversial intellectual and cultural figures comes a book about the classroom as a battleground in the fight for freedom, equality, and justice. For hooks, teaching students to "transgress" the culturally imposed boundaries of economics, race, and gender is the most crucial educational task. Part memoir, part intellectual treatise, part pedagogical guide, this powerfully written, passionate book takes on the intellectually sticky and oft-ignored connections between personal experience and beliefs and teaching. It challenges the reader to rethink teaching and intellectual work as necessarily tied to experience and politics, and challenges teachers to use the classroom as a tool for revolution. A lucid, provocative, and insightful book.

A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned Jane Tompkins PB $13.00 Order now		A renowned critic and professor of English at Duke University, Tompkins has now extended her considerable intellectual gifts into the realm of memoir. This intriguing book chronicles Tompkin's difficult process of discovering the seriously flawed nature of our educational system. Her contention is that a system which neither explores nor sustains the spiritual lives of students cannot truly be called "educational."Through her experimentations in the classroom, the reader is brought face- to-face with the inadequacies of our educational system, and ultimately is introduced to its limitless possibilities. A must-read for teachers of all kinds.

The Discipline of Hope: Learning from a Lifetime of Teaching Herbert Kohl HC $24.00 Order now		In his thirty-plus years as an educator, Herbert Kohl has taught in almost every setting imaginable, from Kindergarten to graduate school, from urban to rural, from an experimental high school to a storefront learning center. He brings his formidable experience to bear in this book, which comes as close to a prescription for education as there is. Drawing on the concrete experiences of his various teaching forays, Kohl provides the reader with a true picture of good teaching, based on the notion that the most precious pedagogical gift there is hope. He shows how, even in the most desperate circumstances and unlikely situations, children can and will learn, and puts forth the idea that worst thing any of us can do is give up on education. Affirmative, practical, and enlightening, The Discipline of Hope gives all of us something to hope for.

The Select: Realities of Life & Learning in America's Elite Colleges Howard R. Greene HC $24.00 Order now		From one of the country's top college placement consultants, comes this groundbreaking study of the myths and realities of life on the campuses of America's 20 most exclusive colleges and universities. Based on the results of his comprehensive survey of 4,000 students at these elite institutions, Greene's book explores and explodes the wide-ranging and pervasive misconceptions about the lives of those students whom he labels "Select." Using sophisticated polling techniques, extensive focus groups, and personal interviews, Greene attempts to break through the "halo effect" surrounding these schools, providing the first realistic look at what happens to these students once they join the ranks of the chosen. A crucial, timely, eye-opening book.

The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem Deborah Meier PB $13.00 Order now		In the dreary morass of scholarship and literature dealing with the desperate plight of our urban schools, Meier's book shines forth as a beacon of hope and encouragement. Without eschewing the very serious problems endemic to the nation's inner city school systems, and with feet very firmly planted in the muddy reality of her Harlem school, Meier manages to produce a collection of essays that speaks volumes about the vast, largely untapped well of possibilities that live in all our children. A very important book.

The Core Knowledge Series E.D. Hirsch, editor Paperback $10.95 to $24.95		From the author of Cultural Literacy, this groundbreaking series gives parents and teachers a practical guide to children's education from Kindergarten through sixth grade. Based upon the philosophy of education which Hirsch advanced in Cultural Literacy, these books present in clear, digestible form, what he believes to be the absolute essentials of a solid education. Hirsch thinks that as important as multicultural education is, children must first be taught the fundamentals of Western thought in the sciences, humanities, arts and mathematics. These books give parents and teachers a series of guideposts to hlep them determine what their children and students should know and be learning in the crucial early stages of their education. Filled with helpful advice as well as practical suggestions for activities and lessons, this collection is a tremendous resource for anyone with any interest in the education of our children.

The Unschooled Mind Howard Gardner PB $17.50 Order now		The third book in Gardner's "trilogy" of groundbreaking studies in education and cognitive science, The Unschooled Mind explores the question of why children are not learning more effectively and mastering what they learn more readily. Once again merging his work in cognitive science with his interest in the educational agenda, Gardner demonstrates the incompatibility between the human mind and its natural patterns of learning with current educational materials, practices, and institutions. The result is an eloquent and compelling expression of the need for restructuring schools.

The Girl With the Brown Crayon Vivian Paley Paperback $10.95 Order now		Another inspiring book from the MacArthur Prize-winning educator, The Girl With the Brown Crayon takes the reader into the endlessly imaginative worlds of young children in the kindergarten classroom. In this classroom we meet Reeny, a little girl with a love of the color brown and an astonishing sense of self. We follow along as Reeny discovers, in the pages of Leo Lionni's stories, kindred spirits, and we are led by Reeny into the worlds of these characters who provide fodder for discussion and debate for an entire school year, Paley's final year as a teacher. Like all of Paley's books, The Girl With the Brown Crayon will change the way you look at children.

Why Our Children Can't Read and What We Can Do About It Diane McGuinness HC $25.00 Order now		With rigor and insight, this book explores one of the most crucial issues facing American society today, the apparent decline in children's literacy. The author begins with the premise that children are "wired" for sound and language, but not for writing and reading. She then explores the controversy between the phonics and "whole language" approaches to teaching reading, with a particular emphasis on linguistics and psychology. The result is an important, thoughtful, and thought-provoking book about what we can do to help our kids read. A must for parents and teachers interested in exploring alternative approaches to the problem of literacy.

The Passionate Teacher: A Practical Guide Robert L. Fried PB $14.00 Order now		or both new and experienced teachers, this book demonstrates that passion in teaching is a skill that can be learned. It does so by suggesting innovative techniques to combat the inevitable disillusionment and cynicism to which so many teachers fall victim.