For years, students in the United States have lagged behind students in many other countries on such measures of achievement as the PISA and TIMSS assessments. In an increasingly globalized world, such a gap is worrisome. Armed with statistics, examples, and cautionary tales from Scandinavia to Japan, James H. Stronge and Xianxuan Xu have written a book that can help educators better prepare students and close that gap. In What Makes a World-Class...

"Are our schools in trouble because they have lowered their standards and strayed too far from the basics? Just the opposite, says Alfie Kohn: if American students are getting less than they deserve, it's due to simplistic demands to "raise the bar" and an aggressive nostalgia for traditional teaching."--BOOK JACKET. "Kohn has an ambitious yet practical vision of what our children's classrooms could be like. Drawing on a remarkable body of research,...

"A guide to saving America's schools [by] CNN Education contributor and America's most uncompromising school principal."-- Provided by publisher.

"Anabel Garza: No school board would have put her forward as a model principal. Pregnant and alone at sixteen, widowed by twenty five, Anabel got along teaching English to Mexican immigrants, raising her son and taking night school classes. But then no model candidate would have taken the job at John H. Reagan High School. Once known to sports fans across Texas as the great champion Big Blue, Reagan was collapsing. The kids were failing the standardized...

Argues for an end to the outmoded industrial educational system and proposes a highly personalized, organic approach that draws on technological and professional resources to engage all students, develop their love of learning, and enable them to face the challenges of the twenty-first century.

This book explores politically charged topics through a series of essays by thinkers at the leading edge of educational innovation. It shows how failing schools destroy neighborhoods--not the reverse--and how research reveals that dedicated, attentive teachers are what help at-risk kids succeed. Inspired the film directed by "An Inconvenient Truth"'s Davis Guggenheim.

Provides specific information on how to transform schools into results-oriented professional learning communities, describing the best practices that have been used by schools nationwide.