In this insightfully honest and moving memoir about the realities of teaching in an inner-city school, Ed Boland "smashes the dangerous myth of the hero-teacher [and] shows us how high the stakes are for our most vulnerable students" (Piper Kerman, author of Orange is the New Black). In a fit of idealism, Ed Boland left a twenty-year career as a non-profit executive to teach in a tough New York City public high school. But his hopes quickly collided headlong with the appalling reality of his students' lives and a hobbled education system unable to help them. Freddy runs a drug ring for his incarcerated brother; Nee-cole is homeschooled on the subway by her brilliant homeless mother; Byron's Ivy League dream is dashed because he is undocumented. In the end, Boland isn't hoisted on his students' shoulders and no one passes AP anything. This is no urban fairy tale of at-risk kids saved by a Hollywood hero, but a searing indictment of schools that claim to be progressive but still fail their students. Told with compassion, humor, and a keen eye, Boland's story is sure to ignite debate about the future of American education and attempts to reform it.

For more than a decade, former New York City and State Teacher of the Year John Taylor Gatto has been among the most insightful and outspoken critics of American schooling, and an influential visionary of the future of education. Through hundreds of public talks, articles, interviews, and classroom projects, Gatto has shown decisively where our failing schools have gone wrong and what can be done to fix them. In A Different Kind of Teacher, the bestselling author of Dumbing Us Down has collected his most important writings of the past ten years -- reports, meditations, action plans, and jeremiads -- that will change forever the reader's understanding of how our system of education really operates, and how it can be rescued. Book jacket.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A groundbreaking history of 175 years of American education that brings the lessons of the past to bear on the dilemmas we face today—and brilliantly illuminates the path forward for public schools. “[A] lively account." —New York Times Book Review In The Teacher Wars, a rich, lively, and unprecedented history of public school teaching, Dana Goldstein reveals that teachers have been embattled for nearly two centuries. She uncovers the surprising roots of hot button issues, from teacher tenure to charter schools, and finds that recent popular ideas to improve schools—instituting merit pay, evaluating teachers by student test scores, ranking and firing veteran teachers, and recruiting “elite” graduates to teach—are all approaches that have been tried in the past without producing widespread change.

"'My son, the doctor' and 'my daughter, the teacher' were among the most cherished phrases of Jewish immigrant parents," writes Ruth Markowitz in recounting this story of Jewish women who taught school in New York. Teaching was an attractive profession to the daughters of immigrants. It provided status, security, was compatible with marriage, and licenses did not require expensive training. In the interwar years, Jewish women in New York entered teaching in large and unprecedented numbers. In fact, by 1960 the majority of all New York teachers were Jewish women. By interviewing sixty-one retired teachers, Ruth Markowitz re-creates their lives and the far-reaching influence they had on public education. Markowitz reveals the barriers these women faced, from lack of parental and financial support to discrimination, as they pursued their educations. Those women who completed their training still had dificulty finding teacing positions, especially during the Depression. Once hired, the teachers' days were filled with overcrowded classes, improperly maintained facilities, enormous amounts of paperwork, few free periods, and countless extracurricular obligations. They also found themselves providing social services; Markowitz finds a large number of teachers who took a special interest in minority children. The teachers Markowitz interviewed often agree with the assessment others have made that the 1930s were in their own way a golden age in the schools. The retired teachers remember the difficult times, but also their love of teaching and the difference they made in the classrooms. Their energy, intiative, and drive will help inspire teachers today, who face the serious problems of drugs, teenage pregnancy, and violence in the classrooms.

The framework for teaching document is an evolving instrument, but the core concepts and architecture (domains, components, and elements) have remained the same.Major concepts of the Common Core State Standards are included. For example, deep conceptual understanding, the importance of student intellectual engagement, and the precise use of language have always been at the foundation of the Framework for Teaching, but are more clearly articulated in this edition.The language has been tightened to increase ease of use and accuracy in assessment.Many of the enhancements to the Framework are located in the possible examples, rather than in the rubric language or critical attributes for each level of performance.

Criticizes the way history is presented in current textbooks, and suggests a more accurate approach to teaching American history.