A Parent's Guide to Public Education in the 21st Century is written to answer questions and help today's parents sort through the weeds of educational reform to make informed decisions designed to get the best possible education for their children.

In America, we have a history of great prosperity and innovation,because we value an "Education of Opportunity" (equal opportunity), based on an individual's freedom and ability to achieve great things. When a child has a solid foundation and can read, write, do math, and understand history, as an adult, that individual is free both to succeed and free to fail. If they do fail, they then have the opportunity to learn from that failure, and then go on to do great things.This book is an inside look at the journey that I myself, and others, have taken to understand the radical education reformoccurring in the United States today. I invite you to join us on that journey of understanding what is happening in our community schools- public, private, and charter- via 21st Century Learning. We will also explore concepts such as College and Career Ready, and the Common Core progressiveteaching strategies.

Step-by-step, schools from the elementary through high school levels are making the transition to 21st-century learning. Some have crossed the threshold almost entirely. In today's progressive classrooms, yesterday's rows of quiet listeners have given way to small groups of active learners, thoroughly engaged in discussions and explorations. And where's the teacher? Instead of standing front and center to deliver instruction, he or she is apt to be on the move, observing, asking questions, and guiding students to make their own sense of the world. Even the classroom walls have expanded, with technologies connecting students to the wider global community. In many schools, the Internet has opened access to a vast world of information, and students are learning critical-thinking skills to filter out the noise and decide which sources are reliable, which information to trust. Kids now create and share their own content too. This means students need to master new technologies and also learn to navigate online communities safely and responsibly. This guide is intended to bring more parents into the conversation about improving education. Readers will get a glimpse of outstanding online resources and projects, sorted by grade levels, and a list of tips to help bring 21st-century skills home. The guide also lists organizations that offer more in-depth information about project-based learning, social and emotional learning, and other strategies to improve education.

More and more parents today are disillusioned with public education. Instead of merely tolerating a faulty system, expanding numbers of parents are turning to alternative education for their children. "Homeschooling" describes what homeschooling is all about, helps parents decide whether or not this choice fits their family lifestyle, covers virtually every aspect of homeschooling, and more.

A comprehensive manual and reference guide for choosing the best elementary school for your child to attend.

Successful students frequently have teachers and parents who communicate often. With new, rigorous standards, it is vital for parents to understand policies and techniques that teachers use. This brief guide provides an overview of concepts parents will hear when they meet with teachers, attend the school board meeting, or talk with their children about what they are learning. Parents may have heard their children say they are doing close reading in social studies classes. In English courses, students might be writing an argument or analyzing one. Teachers in elementary schools are using text-dependent questions to help students grapple with complex texts. What does all that mean? This book explains the shifts in instruction that teachers and students are talking about. Close reading, writing with sources, writing arguments, literacy in the disciplines and more are all covered here. Each section includes ideas for parents who want to help their children.

If you care about the education of a child, you need this book. Comprehensive and easy to use, it will inform, empower, and encourage you. Just as William J. Bennett's The Book of Virtues has helped millions of Americans teach young people about character, The Educated Child delivers what you need to take control. With coauthors Chester E. Finn, Jr., and John T. E. Cribb, Jr., former Secretary of Education Bennett provides the indispensable guide. Championing a clear "back-to-basics" curriculum that will resonate with parents and teachers tired of fads and jargon, The Educated Child supplies an educational road map from earliest childhood to the threshold of high school. It gives parents hundreds of practical suggestions for helping each child succeed while showing what to look for in a good school and what to watch out for in a weak one. The Educated Child places you squarely at the center of your young one's academic career and takes a no-nonsense view of your responsibilities. It empowers you as mothers and fathers, enabling you to reclaim what has been appropriated by "experts" and the education establishment. It out-lines questions you will want to ask, then explains the answers -- or non-answers -- you will be given. No longer will you feel powerless before the education "system." The tools and advice in this guide put the power where it belongs -- in the hands of those who know and love their children best. Using excerpts from E. D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge Sequence, The Educated Child sets forth a state-of-the art curriculum from kindergarten through eighth grade that you can use to monitor what is and isn't being taught in your school. It outlines how you can help teachers ensure that your child masters the most important skills and knowledge. It takes on today's education controversies from phonics to school choice, from outcomes-based education to teaching values, from the education of gifted children to the needs of the disabled. Because much of a youngster's education takes place outside the school, The Educated Child also distills the essential information you need to prepare children for kindergarten and explains to the parents of older students how to deal with such challenges as television, drugs, and sex. If you seek high standards and solid, time-tested content for the child you care so much about, if you want the unvarnished truth about what parents and schools must do, The Educated Child is the one book you need on your shelf.