Bücher veröffentlicht von ASCD

A parent objects to a curriculum that includes a unit on Greek gods, arguing that it violates the separation of church and state. As a teacher or administrator, how should you respond? This type of issue is one most educators will have to confront eventually, in addition to other hot-button issues such as zero-tolerance policies, drug and alcohol testing, and prayer in schools.The School Law Handbook is designed to enable educators to confront such issues with information, insight, and initiative.The issues are organized into five areas: the school environment, Constitutional issues, students, personnel, and accountability. Within each area are several chapters, each beginning with a realistic scenario followed by legal and practical analyses of the situation.Armed with this knowledge of the parameters governing each scenario, educators can more effectively manage their responses, asking and answering the key questions:- What are the legal boundaries?- What is the district policy related to this issue?- What are the potential strategies for resolution?In this era of unparalleled public scrutiny, The School Law Handbook is essential reading for all school personnel.

Educators devoted to school reform focus all too often on the isolated components of K-12 education--this is the essential premise of this powerful new book. If we are truly committed to improving our schools, the author contends, then we must focus on the interdependence of variables that affect student learning, both inside and outside the classroom.The book is divided into three distinct parts. In Part 1, Danielson introduces the Four Circles Model to define the criteria for successful school improvement: Everything educators do to help their students learn must be based on what educators want (school, district, or state goals), believe (values and principles), and know (educational research).In Part 2, the author provides a framework for improving schools--including curriculum, team planning, and policies and practices affecting students--and connects every concept to the criteria presented in Part 1. She also provides a handy rubric at the end of each chapter, both as a summary of main points and as a tool for educators to gauge the needs of their school. Part 3 offers readers guidelines on how best to implement the framework using action planning.Brimming with perceptive advice and thought-provoking arguments, this book is both a wake-up call and a roadmap to success for those determined to provide students with the best education possible.

With public and political demand for educational accountability never higher, educators are under enormous pressure to raise students' scores on standardized achievement tests. Policymakers are backing large-scale, high-stakes testing programs as the best way to determine which schools are failing and which schools are succeeding, and the only way to ensure the quality of students' schooling.Nonsense, says distinguished educator and author W. James Popham.In The Truth About Testing: An Educator's Call to Action, Popham explores both the absurdity and the serious destructive consequences of today's testing programs. He uses actual items drawn from current standardized achievement tests to show what these tests really measure and why they should never be used to evaluate school quality or teacher ability.But, Popham insists, there's a way out of this measurement mess. And it's up to educators to take the first steps. Throughout this commonsense and conversational resource, the author appeals to educators to build their own assessment literacy, spread the word about harmful testing, and reexamine how they use test data in the classroom. He provides Advice for distinguishing between sound and unsound large-scale tests. Guidelines to help teachers maximize the instructional benefits properly constructed classroom tests can bring. Evidence-gathering strategies for teachers and administrators trying to survive and thrive in an accountability-driven environment.The book closes with a series of action items for educators interested in ending the score-boosting game, halting the erosion of educational quality, and establishing the kind of testing that can improve student learning.

In Taking Religion Seriously Across the Curriculum, Warren A. Nord and Charles C. Haynes chart a middle course in our culture wars over religion and public education-one that builds on a developing national consensus among educational and religious leaders. While it is not proper for schools to practice religion or proselytize, it is not permissible to make them into "religion-free" zones either; schools must take religion seriously. Unfortunately, religion is taken far from seriously in the K-12 curriculum, as the authors' review of textbooks and the new national content standards makes clear.In Part One Nord and Haynes explain why schools should take religion seriously, and they outline the civic, constitutional, and educational frameworks that should shape the treatment of religion in the curriculum and classroom. In Part Two they explore the major issues relating to religion in different domains of the curriculum--in elementary education, and in middle and high school courses in history, civics, economics, literature, and the sciences. They also discuss Bible courses and world religions courses, and they explore the relationship of religion to moral education and sex education. The result is a book that is unique in the scope of its consideration of the relevance of religion across the curriculum.Anyone interested in the future of public education will find much that is worth considering in this timely, thoughtful, and provocative volume.

Today's students are more diverse than ever before--in cultural backgrounds, learning styles and interests, social and economic classes, and abilities and disabilities. How can schools accommodate these differences while also dealing with all the other pressing demands for change, including the push for tougher standards and the call for more discipline in the classroom?This book offers answers and challenge schools to reinvent themselves as more flexible, creative learning communities responsive to the widest range of human diversity, including students officially designated as disabled. The authors propose a systemic framework that will support change efforts at district, school, and classroom levels. Their approach rests on three main ideas: (1) Locate decisions with groups of teachers, (2) Create new roles for teachers, and (3) Redesign individualized education plans.Using these ideas as a starting point, the authors present strategies teachers can use to design personalized curriculum and instruction that factors in the kinds of support, assistance, and opportunity each student needs to succeed. The book provides a variety of practical tools for developing long-term curriculum plans, planning lessons, and tailoring learning experiences. It also includes sample forms and templates to help teachers Gather information about student interests and family learning priorities. Create classroom-based assessment and reporting systems that capture and communicate real learning gains that might on register on state benchmark exams. Reflect on teaching practice.Designing Personalized Learning for Every Student is the outcome of 15 years of collaboration. The authors believe its synthesis of learning and professional development finally undoes the separation of general and special education and accomplishes the real purpose of schooling--helping all students become active, valued members of their community.