Learn what school was like in pioneer times.

Sleep is not only a biological necessity but also a physiological drive. In today's fast-paced world, though, a good night's sleep is often the first thing to go. The effects of inadequate sleep are more than mere annoyances: they affect our mood and how we perform at school, work, and home and behind the wheel. Lost sleep also accumulates over time; the more "sleep debt" an individual incurs, the greater the negative consequences, according to researchers in the field. Research on adolescents and sleep has been under way for more than two decades, and there is growing evidence that adolescents are developmentally vulnerable to sleep difficulties. To discuss current research in this area and its implications in the policy, public, health, and educational arenas, the Forum on Adolescence of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families held a workshop, entitled Sleep Needs, Patterns, and Difficulties of Adolescents, on September 22, 1999.

In the first social history of what happened to public schools in those "years of the locust," the authors explore the daily experience of schoolchildren in many kinds of communities--the public school students of working-class northeastern towns, the rural black children of the South, the prosperous adolescents of midwestern suburbs. How did educators respond to the fiscal crisis, and why did Americans retain their faith in public schooling during the cataclysm? The authors examine how New Dealers regarded public education and the reaction of public school people to the distinctive New Deal style in programs such as the National Youth Administration. They illustrate the story with photographs, cartoons, and vignettes of life behind the schoolhouse door. Moving from that troubled period to our own, the authors compare the anxieties of the depression decade with the uncertainties of the 1970s and 1980s. Heirs to an optimistic tradition and trained to manage growth, school staff have lately encountered three shortages: of pupils, money, and public confidence. Professional morale has dropped as expectations and criticism have mounted. Changes in the governing and financing of education have made planning for the future even riskier than usual. Drawing on the experience of the 1930s to illuminate the problems of the 1980s, the authors lend historical perspective to current discussions about the future of public education. They stress the basic stability of public education while emphasizing the unfinished business of achieving equality in schooling.

Following substantial changes throughout the Australian education system, primary schools are no longer in the protected position of having a regulated flow of clients, a pre-determined curriculum and marginal levels of staff development. Recent moves have brought new or increased responsibilities for all schools in areas such as: *curriculum and policy development *staff development *monitoring and assessment *the use of new technologies *resource allocation This book seeks to review the impact of this change on Australian primary schools, on the people who are involved with them and the issues they face. Primary education is being re-structured throughout the world, and therefore these issues are of great interest and relevance to educators worldwide.

Education leadership has been subject to a period of turmoil with rapid social change, political demands for excellence, economic pressures for austerity and the influence of technology impacting on leadership roles in multiple ways. This book draws on real examples of practice to identify the key challenges facing educational leadership and how these might be overcome drawing on recent research and interventions that have impacted positively on learner outcomes and teacher retention. Covering all aspects of leadership including school improvement, vision and values, working with partners and leading change, the book launches the concept of atomic leadership, advocating small steps to change for maximum momentum and large-scale impact. It reveals how leaders can cooperate to trial new ways of learning and disseminate their successes and failures with a new honesty and openness about what works in our schools. With reflective tasks in every chapter, this text will inspire debate and inform discussion at staff meetings and is essential reading for all school leaders as well as those undertaking master-level courses in educational leadership and or pursuing the National Professional Qualifications in leadership.

From the publisher. Improve your school's productivity with existing resources by implementing performance-based budgeting. Included are step-by-step instructions for how to do more with less.

Examines schools in Chicago, where the largest experiment in site-based management & accountability is being enacted. An analysis allows insights relevant beyond this single site & permits pursuit of an agenda concerned w/ educational leadership & reform