"What year are you preparing your students for? 1973? 1995? Can you honestly say that your school's curriculum and the program you use are preparing your students for 2015 or 2020? Are you even preparing them for today?" With those provocative questions, author and educator Heidi Hayes Jacobs launches a powerful case for overhauling, updating, and injecting life into the K-12 curriculum. Sharing her expertise as a world-renowned curriculum designer and calling upon the collective wisdom of 10 education thought leaders, Jacobs provides insight and inspiration in the following key areas: * Content and assessment: How to identify what to keep, what to cut, and what to create, and where portfolios and other new kinds of assessment fit into the picture. * Program structures: How to improve our use of time and space and groupings of students and staff. * Technology: How it's transforming teaching, and how to take advantage of students' natural facility with technology. * Media literacy: The essential issues to address, and the best resources for helping students become informed users of multiple forms of media. * Globalization: What steps to take to help students gain a global perspective. * Sustainability: How to instill enduring values and beliefs that will lead to healthier local, national, and global communities. * Habits of mind: The thinking habits that students, teachers, and administrators need to develop and practice to succeed in school, work, and life. The answers to these questions and many more make Curriculum 21 the ideal guide for transforming our schools into what they must become: learning organizations that match the times in which we live.

This handbook describes procedures for school-district reorganization in California. Following the introductory chapter, chapter 2 offers a historical overview of school-district reorganization in California. Chapters 3 and 4 outline the organization and responsibilities of the county committee and the role and responsibilities of the State Board of Education. The fifth chapter provides a step-by-step process of forming or abolishing school districts, consolidating school districts, transferring territory, and unifying school districts. A series of flowcharts explain the 25 percent petition, the 10 percent petition, the state criteria for approvals, and the guidelines for administering the California Environmental Quality Act regulations. Chapter 6 details the requirements of the Education Code Section 35753 governing reorganization proposals. Chapter 7 lists the various effects of a district organizational change on a school district and its employees, property, funds, obligations, bond indebtedness, and revenue limit. The requirements for elections and public hearings are listed in the eighth chapter. Chapters 9 and 10 describe the new governing board and its operations and other functions of the county committee. The final two chapter summarize the appeals process related to transfers of territory and procedures for reorganizing community colleges. Appendices contain state regulations; a list of chartered counties, cities, and school districts; and sample forms. (LMI)

Provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive review of contemporary research in education policy implementation. A companion to Allan R. Odden’s Education Policy Implementation, also published by SUNY Press, this book presents original work by a new generation of scholars contributing to education policy implementation research. The contributors define education policy implementation as the product of the interaction among particular policies, people, and places. Their analyses of previous generations of implementation research reveal that contemporary findings not only build directly on lessons learned from the past, but also seek to deepen past findings. These contemporary researchers also break from the past by seeking a more nuanced, contingent, and rigorous theory-based explication of how implementation unfolds. They argue that researchers and practitioners can help improve education policy implementation by not asking simply what works, but rather focusing their attention on what works, for whom, where, when, and why. Meredith I. Honig is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Washington at Seattle.

Since its publication in June 1998, Information Power has become the most talked about book in the school library world!

Countless studies demonstrate that students with parents actively involved in their education at home and school are more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, enroll in higher-level programs, graduate from high school, and go on to post-secondary education. Beyond the Bake Sale shows how to form these essential partnerships and how to make them work. Packed with tips from principals and teachers, checklists, and an invaluable resource section, Beyond the Bake Sale reveals how to build strong collaborative relationships and offers practical advice for improving interactions between parents and teachers, from insuring that PTA groups are constructive and inclusive to navigating the complex issues surrounding diversity in the classroom. Written with candor, clarity, and humor, Beyond the Bake Sale is essential reading for teachers, parents on the front lines in public schools, and administrators and policy makers at all levels.

Latino Civil Rights in Education: La Lucha Sigue documents the experiences of historical and contemporary advocates in the movement for civil rights in education of Latinos in the United States. These critical narratives and counternarratives discuss identity, inequality, desegregation, policy, public school, bilingual education, higher education, family engagement, and more, comprising an ongoing effort to improve the conditions of schooling for Latino children. Featuring the perspectives and research of Latino educators, sociologists, historians, attorneys, and academics whose lives were guided by this movement, the book holds broad applications in the study and continuation of social justice and activism today.

Sponsored by the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), the second edition of this groundbreaking handbook assembles in one place the existing research-based knowledge in education finance and policy, with particular attention to elementary and secondary education. Chapters from the first edition have been fully updated and revised to reflect current developments, new policies, and recent research. With new chapters on teacher evaluation, alternatives to traditional public schooling, and cost-benefit analysis, this volume provides a readily available current resource for anyone involved in education finance and policy. The Handbook of Research in Education Finance and Policy traces the evolution of the field from its initial focus on school inputs and revenue sources used to finance these inputs, to a focus on educational outcomes and the larger policies used to achieve them. Chapters show how decision making in school finance inevitably interacts with decisions about governance, accountability, equity, privatization, and other areas of education policy. Because a full understanding of important contemporary issues requires inputs from a variety of perspectives, the Handbook draws on contributors from a number of disciplines. Although many of the chapters cover complex, state-of-the-art empirical research, the authors explain key concepts in language that non-specialists can understand. This comprehensive, balanced, and accessible resource provides a wealth of factual information, data, and wisdom to help educators improve the quality of education in the United States.