This participant book, in combination with the facilitator's guide, forms a comprehensive professional development program designed to improve the efforts of site-based mathematics leadership teams for middle and high schools. Secondary Lenses on Learning prepares leaders to explore concepts in middle and high school algebra as a window into content, instruction, and assessment. You will learn how to assess the strengths and needs of your mathematics programs, set goals, and generate plans for ongoing improvement by engaging in extended explorations and conversations based on readings, problem-based activities, cases, and videos.

Competency-Based Education introduces educators to a new model for anytime, anywhere schooling and provides tools and curriculum resources for redesigning the traditional structures of K–12 schools. Based on pioneering work across multiple states, the book shows how educators can design central elements of competency-based education—including performance tasks, personal learning plans, and grading systems—to meet the needs and interests of all students. Rose L. Colby provides critical tools for creating these elements in collaborative teams and engaging stakeholders such as educators, parents, and community members. The book incorporates case studies and voices from the field, and examines the variety of competency models that schools have adopted, highlighting the benefits for students. Competency-Based Education provides a much-needed resource at a time when states, districts, and schools are working to implement competency-based models and experimenting with new accountability systems that include evidence of learning beyond standardized tests.

The challenge of overcoming educational inequality in the United States can sometimes appear overwhelming, and great controversy exists as to whether or not elementary schools are up to the task, whether they can ameliorate existing social inequalities and initiate opportunities for economic and civic flourishing for all children. This book shows what can happen when you rethink schools from the ground up with precisely these goals in mind, approaching educational inequality and its entrenched causes head on, student by student. Drawing on an in-depth study of real schools on the South Side of Chicago, Elizabeth McGhee Hassrick, Stephen W. Raudenbush, and Lisa Rosen argue that effectively meeting the challenge of educational inequality requires a complete reorganization of institutional structures as well as wholly new norms, values, and practices that are animated by a relentless commitment to student learning. They examine a model that pulls teachers out of their isolated classrooms and places them into collaborative environments where they can share their curricula, teaching methods, and assessments of student progress with a school-based network of peers, parents, and other professionals. Within this structure, teachers, school leaders, social workers, and parents collaborate to ensure that every child receives instruction tailored to his or her developing skills. Cooperating schools share new tools for assessment and instruction and become sites for the training of new teachers. Parents become respected partners, and expert practitioners work with researchers to evaluate their work and refine their models for educational organization and practice. The authors show not only what such a model looks like but the dramatic results it produces for student learning and achievement. The result is a fresh, deeply informed, and remarkably clear portrait of school reform that directly addresses the real problems of educational inequality.

This comprehensive book presents emerging research findings and promising reform practices in the field of teacher education, curriculum, assessment, teaching and learning approaches, pedagogical innovations, and professional development in educating the next generation of globally competent students. It reflects the current trends and highlights contemporary teacher education programs in twenty greater Asian countries and regions. It offers insight into improving teacher education in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Indonesia, Brunei, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and Macau. The handbook contains chapters written by experienced international teacher educators who draw on their experience and expertise to perennial issues and formidable challenges in teacher preparation and meaningful school reforms. This volume is a valuable resource and essential companion for teacher educators, faculty members, staff developers, trainee teachers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers, school leaders, policy-makers, and professional learning communities to refresh their knowledge and improve their understanding. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in evolving issues in teacher education.

Instructional rounds is a powerful form of professional learning aimed at helping schools and systems develop the capacity to educate all children to high levels. In this practical book, Thomas Fowler-Finn, an experienced consultant who has worked closely with the Harvard team that pioneered instructional rounds, discusses how facilitators can skillfully guide a network of educators through the rounds process. He shows how to scaffold participant learning, model effective teaching practices, and gradually transfer agency to the network. Leading Instructional Rounds is an invaluable resource for advancing the work of all facilitators, whether novice or experienced.

State school finance formula cause funding inadequacy, allocative inefficiency, and educational resource equity gaps. Legislative and court-ordered remedies have failed to solve the disparities among schools and districts. This book’s ground-breaking innovation shows how toshift the public education finance paradigm to fund K-12 public education properly, fully, and equitably by eliminating the duplicative and unnecessary layer of county government nationwide and repurposing those tax dollars while implementing economies of scale to achieve allocative efficiency.

This participant book, in combination with the facilitator's guide, forms a comprehensive professional development program designed to improve the efforts of site-based mathematics leadership teams for middle and high schools. Secondary Lenses on Learning prepares leaders to explore concepts in middle and high school algebra as a window into content, instruction, and assessment. You will learn how to assess the strengths and needs of your mathematics programs, set goals, and generate plans for ongoing improvement by engaging in extended explorations and conversations based on readings, problem-based activities, cases, and videos.