We are in an era of radical distrust of public education. Increasingly, we turn to standardized tests and standardized curricula-now adopted by all fifty states-as our national surrogates for trust. Legendary school founder and reformer Deborah Meier believes fiercely that schools have to win our faith by showing they can do their job. But she argues just as fiercely that standardized testing is precisely the wrong way to that end. The tests themselves, she argues, cannot give the results they claim. And in the meantime, they undermine the kind of education we actually want. In this multilayered exploration of trust and schools, Meier critiques the ideology of testing and puts forward a different vision, forged in the success stories of small public schools she and her colleagues have created in Boston and New York. These nationally acclaimed schools are built, famously, around trusting teachers-and students and parents-to use their own judgment. Meier traces the enormous educational value of trust; the crucial and complicated trust between parents and teachers; how teachers need to become better judges of each others' work; how race and class complicate trust at all levels; and how we can begin to 'scale up' from the kinds of successes she has created.

The 5-pack provides five books of the same grade level.

This document is a response to teachers' requests for practical assistance in implementing California's history-social science framework. The document offers stimulating ideas to enrich the teaching of history and social science, enliven instruction for every student, focus on essential topics, and help make learning more memorable. Experiences and contributions of ethnic groups and women in history are integrated in this course model. The framework is divided into 11 units: (1) Connecting with Past Learnings: Uncovering the Remote Past; (2) Connecting with Past Learnings: the Fall of Rome; (3) Growth of Islam; (4) African States in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times; (5) Civilizations of the Americas; (6) China; (7) Japan; (8) Medieval Societies: Europe and Japan; (9) Europe During the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution; (10) Early Modern Europe: The Age of Exploration to the Enlightenment; and (11) Linking Past to Present. Six of the 11 units delineated in the framework's 7th grade course description are developed in these course models. All units follow the same format. Each begins with a rationale and overview. Ways are suggested for teachers to coordinate the model with the state-adopted textbook for 7th grade. A presentation of activities to introduce and continue the sample topic are suggested to encourage students to apply what they have studied through projects. Each unit ends with an extensive annotated list of sample resources. (DK)

Explores the most personal, mirthful, disturbing and cherished times of our lives in essay form.

As the newly welcomed hedge Magicians and the traditional students come together for the first time in Brakebills history, things go wrong. A horrible accident leaves a student dead—and the only way to keep it a secret is for the two groups to work together.