McLaughlin and Talbert-foremost scholars of school change and teaching contexts-provide an inside look at the processes, resources, and system strategies that are necessary to build vibrant school-based teacher learning communities.

Offering a compelling, straightforward blueprint for action, this book:

• Takes a comprehensive look at the problem of improving the quality of teaching across the United States, based on evidence and examples from the authors’ nearly two decades of research.
• Demonstrates how and why school-based teacher learning communities are bottom-line requirements for improved instruction.
• Outlines the resources and supports needed to build and sustain a long-term school-based teacher professional community.
• Discusses the nature of high-quality professional development to support learning and changes in teaching.
• Details the roles and responsibilities of policymakers at all levels of the school system.

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1. Engaging All by Creating High School Learning Communities
2. Reaching All by Creating Tribes Learning Communities

The author and her colleagues present a lively synthesis of a wealth of research studies and effective practices which underlie the Tribes Learning Community developmental approach for middle level students and their schools. The synthesis draws upon relevant literature on cognitive theory, human resilience, multiple intelligences, democratic classroom management, cooperative learning, constructivism, social-emotional learning, multicultural-gender equity, reflective practice and authentic assessment.

Placing the major emphasis on middle level schools becoming responsive to the contextual basis of adolescent development, leads not only to greater achievement and success for students but to a new spirit, energy and the discovery of gifts throughout the whole school community.

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Learn new insights on the influence that race, class, and cultural experience have on learning and achievement. Understand new ways to close achievement gaps by changing school policies, learning environments, teaching practices, curriculum programs, and professional development. And explore a total framework for reform that integrates accountability measurements with a view of teaching and learning based on normal human development.

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• improve your habits,
• maintain a positive outlook,
• reduce your chances of getting sick,
• take control over your own happiness,
• protect your time,
• rejuvenate your passion for teaching,
• avoid stress and learn to relax, and
• visualize a successful outcome.

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1. Teachers Wanted

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3. Teachers Wanted

1993, 85 pages.

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Time magazine has called him “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades [and] test scores.”

And the Washington Post says he is “the most energetic and charismatic figure standing in the way of a major federal effort to make standardized curriculums and tests a fact of life in every U.S. school.”

In this new collection of essays, Kohn takes on some of the most important and controversial topics in education of the last few years. His central focus is on the real goals of education-a topic, he argues, that we systematically ignore while lavishing attention on misguided models of learning and counterproductive techniques of motivation.

The shift to talking about goals yields radical conclusions and wonderfully pungent essays that only Alfie Kohn could have written. From the title essay’s challenge to conventional, conservative definitions of a good education to essays on standards and testing and grades that tally the severe educational costs of overemphasizing a narrow conception of achievement, Kohn boldly builds on his earlier work and writes for a wide audience.

Kohn’s new book will be greeted with enthusiasm by his many readers and by any teacher or parent looking for a refreshing perspective on today’s debates about schools.

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3. School Reform from the Inside Out

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Using actual items drawn from current tests, a renowned expert explains:

• How unsound testing is harming classroom teaching and learning
• What standardized tests can and can’t measure
• How to create large-scale tests and in-class assessments that help teachers teach better

Explore ways to base school and teacher evaluations on credible evidence. And read clear, practical steps for ending the misapplication of tests.

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Drawing from research studies and observations from successful schools, Reeves debunks many common myths about school leadership and offers more reliable leadership guideposts to steer by:

• Why focusing on results only can lead to misperceptions about your school’s true performance
• How to use a Leadership for Learning Framework to relate leadership actions to school success
• Which “sacred” education practices may need to be sacrificed for improvement to occur
• How to use leadership maps to chart the effectiveness of improvement efforts and plan next steps

Leadership tips crammed throughout the book include:

• Seven leadership dimensions that are essential to successful organizations
• Five criteria of schools that improve achievement and close equity gaps
• Six common routines that need to be “weeded” from schools in order for learning to flourish

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