The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is the latest in more than two decades of federal efforts to raise educational standards and an even longer stream of initiatives to improve education for poor children. What lessons can we draw from these earlier efforts to help NCLB achieve its goals? In Standards-Based Reform and the Poverty Gap, leading scholars in sociology, economics, psychology, and education policy take on this critical question. Armed with the latest data and up-to-date research syntheses, the authors show that standards-based reform has had some positive effects, particularly in the area of teacher quality. Moreover, some of the critics' greatest fears have not been realized: for example, retention rates have not shot upward. Yet the overall pace of improvement has been slow, owing in part to poor implementation. Based on these findings, the contributors offer recommendations for the implementation and impending reauthorization of NCLB. These proposals, such as national testing and a rethinking of achievement targets, are sure to be at the center of the upcoming debate. Contributors include Thomas Dee, Laura Desimone, George Farkas, Barbara Foorman, Brian Jacob, Robert M. Hauser, Paul Hill, Tom Loveless, Meredith Phillips, Andrew C. Porter, and Thomas Smith.

Standards-based education (SBE) has been the dominant educational reform movement since the early 1980s, reinforced by federal and state accountability systems. This book examines the efforts of educational leaders in implementing SBE to improve student achievement in a variety of demographic contexts but with common challenges. Four stages of SBE implementation are identified that focus on strong district leadership of the articulation of how SBE can benefit students, an investment in collaborative structures and teacher training, and the facilitation of dialogue among all educational stakeholders. The descriptions of leadership actions and educator development at each stage can serve as a guide for educators and policy makers to assess which stage schools and districts are in and what steps can be taken to effectively move SBE reform efforts forward. The reflective questions for district, school, and teacher leaders at each stage can facilitate the dialogues that can ensure that SBE reform supports changes in classroom instruction that improve the learning opportunities and educational outcomes of all students.

In this volume prominent scholars, experts in their respective fields and highly skilled in the research they conduct, address educational and reading research from varied perspectives and address what it will take to close the achievement gap—with specific attention to reading. The achievement gap is redefined as a level at which all groups can compete economically in our society and have the literacy tools and habits needed for a good life. Bringing valuable theoretical frameworks and in-depth analytical approaches to interpretation of data, the contributors examine factors that contribute to student achievement inside the school but which are also heavily influenced by out-of-school factors—such as poverty and economics, ethnicity and culture, family and community stratifications, and approaches to measurement of achievement. These out-of-school factors present possibilities for new policies and practice. The overarching theme is that achievement gaps in reading are complex and that multiple perspectives are necessary to address the problem. The breadth and depth of perspectives and content in this volume and its conceptualization of the achievement gap are a significant contribution to the field.

This book reviews one hundred years of educational reforms worldwide. Characterized by a tension between governing public and professional forces, the waves of educational reform reflect myriad efforts to define and fulfill professional and public expectations for the world of education. The first wave of reform, based on “progressive” ideals, spread across the globe after World War I, striving to place the student at the center of the education process and respond to the diverse needs of children and youth in a world that included massive population shifts. The second wave nearly obliterated the ideals of the progressive movement that had prevailed for sixty years. Drawing its principles from the business world, the second wave imposed competition, uniform standards, and measurable outputs on students, teachers, and schools, even at the cost of harming at-risk populations and encouraging the infiltration of private sector values into public education systems.The third wave was launched at the turn of the twenty-first century. Seeking to adjust instructional methods to modern reality, this reform rejected standardized curricula in favor of developing skills such as independent thinking, curiosity, innovation, collaboration among learners, and the ability to mine and process information. Book I reviews the three waves of reform in the United States, England, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and Finland. Book II focuses on Israel’s education system — past, present, and future.

Over the past twenty years, educational policy has been characterized by top?down, market?focused policies combined with a push toward privatization and school choice. The new Every Student Succeeds Act continues along this path, though with decision?making authority now shifted toward the states. These market?based reforms have often been touted as the most promising response to the challenges of poverty and educational disenfranchisement. But has this approach been successful? Has learning improved? Have historically low?scoring schools “turned around” or have the reforms had little effect? Have these narrow conceptions of schooling harmed the civic and social purposes of education in a democracy? This book presents the evidence. Drawing on the work of the nation’s most prominent researchers, the book explores the major elements of these reforms, as well as the social, political, and educational contexts in which they take place. It examines the evidence supporting the most common school improvement strategies: school choice; reconstitutions, or massive personnel changes; and school closures. From there, it presents the research findings cutting across these strategies by addressing the evidence on test score trends, teacher evaluation, “miracle” schools, the Common Core State Standards, school choice, the newly emerging school improvement industry, and re?segregation, among others. The weight of the evidence indisputably shows little success and no promise for these reforms. Thus, the authors counsel strongly against continuing these failed policies. The book concludes with a review of more promising avenues for educational reform, including the necessity of broader societal investments for combatting poverty and adverse social conditions. While schools cannot single?handedly overcome societal inequalities, important work can take place within the public school system, with evidence?based interventions such as early childhood education, detracking, adequate funding and full?service community schools—all intended to renew our nation’s commitment to democracy and equal educational opportunity.

Comprehensive and integrative, The Oxford Handbook of Poverty and Child Development describes the contextual and social ecology of children living in poverty and illuminates the biological and behavioral interactions that either promote optimal development or that place children at risk of having poor developmental outcomes.

Contemporary public policy assumes that the achievement gap between black and white students could be closed if only schools would do a better job. According to Richard Rothstein, "Closing the gaps between lower-class and middle-class children requires social and economic reform as well as school improvement. Unfortunately, the trend is to shift most of the burden to schools, as if they alone can eradicate poverty and inequality." In this book, Rothstein points the way toward social and economic reforms that would give all children a more equal chance to succeed in school. This book features: a summary of numerous studies linking school achievement to health care quality, nutrition, childrearing styles, housing stability, parental economic security, and more ; aA look at erroneous and misleading data that underlie commonplace claims that some schools "beat the demographic odds and therefore any school can close the achievement gap if only it adopted proper practices." ; and an analysis of how the over-emphasis of standardized tests in federal law obscures the true achievement gap and makes narrowing it more difficult.