Schools across the United States and Canada are disrupting the adverse effects of poverty and supporting students in ways that enable them to succeed in school and in life. In this second edition, Parrett and Budge show you how your school can achieve similar results. Expanding on their original framework's still-critical concepts of actions and school culture, they incorporate new insights for addressing equity, trauma, and social-emotional learning. These fresh perspectives combine with lessons learned from 12 additional high-poverty, high-performing schools to form the updated and enhanced Framework for Collective Action. Emphasizing students' social, emotional, and academic learning as the hub for all action in high-performing, high-poverty schools, the authors describe how educators can work within the expanded Framework to address the needs of all students, but particularly those who live in poverty. Equipped with the Framework and a plethora of tools to build collective efficacy (self-assessments, high-leverage questions, action advice, and more), school and district leaders—as well as teachers, teacher leaders, instructional coaches, and other staff—can close persistent opportunity gaps and reverse longstanding patterns of low achievement.

Is it possible for high-poverty schools to be high achieving? Of course it is! Real schools with students living in poverty do post high levels of student achievement. Learn what these schools do to help students succeed—and how you and your school can adopt the same practices—no matter what socio-economic climate students live in. Lessons learned and practical advice from seven of these high-performing/high-poverty (HP/HP) schools, along with hundreds of others that have been the subject of intensive research, are the focus of this book. Authors William Parrett and Kathleen Budge have synthesized the research, studied the schools in depth, and show you critical components that set these institutions apart from their struggling peers. After setting the context by examining poverty and its stunning effects on students, the authors then zero in on what HP/HP schools stopped doing or eliminated and what they started doing or improved on in three key areas of performance: * Building leadership capacity; * Fostering a safe, healthy, and supportive learning environment; and; * Focusing on student, professional, and system learning.; Principals, teacher-leaders, and district leaders can benefit from the real-world examples and practical guidelines, all based on research and experience. Rather than suggesting a one-size-fits-all approach, the authors acknowledge the unique context of individual schools and urge readers to engage in self-assessment, reflection, and coordinated action to learn together and lead together, with rubrics and planning templates provided to guide the process. The reality is that any school willing to refocus its efforts can become a high-performing school.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires that all states install school & district accountability systems based on the results of student scores on annual tests. The goal is to press states & districts to act decisively to turn around failing schools & boost pupil achievement, particularly in reading & math. But little is known about what kinds of interventions are most likely to turn faltering schools into successful educational institutions. This report describes the interventions set forth for state & local policymakers as part of NCLB. It categorizes & reviews 17 interventions that have been attempted by states or school districts since 1989. Looks in detail at 3 interventions in: N.Y. State; Memphis, TN; & in Prince George's County, MD.

"All children can learn. The principals and schools profiled in this book have overcome the bureaucratic and cultural obstacles that keep low-income children behind in most public schools. No Excuses schools have created a culture of achievement among children whom most public schools would condemn to a life of failure."--Foreword, p. 1-2.

Stop High-Stakes Testing: An Appeal to America's Conscience is a compelling indictment of the use of high-stakes assessments with punitive consequences in our public schools. The authors trace the history of the policy and document the inequities for children of poverty that undergird high-stakes testing practices. Lack of dental and medical care, environmental violence, insufficient school funding, racism, and classism--all factors that contribute to this dire situation--are discussed in depth. The authors make a convincing case for discontinuing the unjust testing that has been forced on our nation's public school children.

American public schools are facing a crisis of confidence as America penetrates more deeply into the era of The No Child Left Behind Act. The statute requires the standards to rise each year until the year of perfection, 2014--when 100% of the students are required to meet annual yearly progress (AYP). There is varied discussion among credible education groups that the year of perfection is unrealistic since not all children come to school equally ready to learn. Universal standards that do not account for differences in student readiness create an uneven measure. That is where this book comes in. The Forces Behind School Change: Defining and Understanding the Call for Perfection is intended to be a resource for schools of affluence and also for schools of poverty. This classic dichotomy is at the center of the tension. Tim Carman argues that there is hope amid all the tension. The Forces Behind School Change will provide school communities with the knowledge and skills to close the achievement gap. In addition to dozens of best practice ideas that schools will need, this book also spotlights how to use the most up-to-date information on the brain to help students achieve educational excellence and provides hope, confidence, and the know-how to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of insuring that every child, no matter their background, will meet the high academic standards that are required.

Foundations of Education provides complete coverage of all foundational areas; superior coverage of social foundations; updates on key issues in education; and strong, thought-provoking pedagogy. Completely updated, the Sixth Edition focuses more on technology with new sections on the history of technology in education; the place of technology in school reform; and the effects of digital technologies on children. Getting to the Source one-page excerpts familiarize students with a wide variety of primary source materials. Taking Issues charts present controversial topics in the field of education, offering arguments on both sides of a question.