Failing schools have become the latest academic cottage industry, and they serve as lightning rods for the controversy that continues to surround the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Surprisingly, there are only a handful of books that address the topic of turning around failing schools and even fewer that provide a meaningful discussion on how individual schools should avoid failure from the outset. This book will help public school educators understand that turnaround efforts are based on sound leadership principles - nothing more, nothing less. It also provides school leaders with the critical skills to turn around failing schools and, more importantly, prevent their schools from failing in the first place. Individual chapters address topics such as setting institutional priorities, establishing a positive school culture, improving communications, developing classroom leadership, putting the school on a sound financial footing, and using data to guide the school turnaround. In essence, this book serves as a practical guide for instructional and institutional leaders on how to make a "real" difference in the success of our nation's schools.

Failing schools have become the latest academic cottage industry, and they serve as lightning rods for the controversy that continues to surround the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Surprisingly, there are only a handful of books that address the topic of turning around failing schools and even fewer that provide a meaningful discussion on how individual schools should avoid failure from the outset. This book will help public school educators understand that turnaround efforts are based on sound leadership principles - nothing more, nothing less. It also provides school leaders with the critical skills to turn around failing schools and, more importantly, prevent their schools from failing in the first place. Individual chapters address topics such as setting institutional priorities, establishing a positive school culture, improving communications, developing classroom leadership, putting the school on a sound financial footing, and using data to guide the school turnaround. In essence, this book serves as a practical guide for instructional and institutional leaders on how to make a "real" difference in the success of our nation's schools.

The Artist as Mystic is a set of lyric conversations between aphorists Yahia Lababidi and Alex Stein. These conversations constitute what Australians call a Songline a set of sacred songs that allow the reader/listener to navigate through an unknown terrain, in this case, populated by tortured and ecstatic souls: Kafka, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Rilke, Kierkegaard and Ekelund. These visionaries are masterfully evoked in this very fine work of biography and criticism. But these writings are more than the sum of notes on a page, they are song. The Artist as Mystic passes the test of all great writing, not only to delight, but to leave us knowing something of the subject, and ourselves, that we hadn t considered before.

The book provides a comprehensive and principled account of the uncertainty problem that arises in tort litigation. It presents and critically examines the existing doctrinal solutions of the problem, as evolved in England, the United States, Canada, and Israel, and also offers a number of original solutions, such as imposition of collective liability and liability for evidential damage. Among the issues dealt with by the book are rapidly developing areas of tort law, such as mass torts, liability for imposing risk and the like. The book combines the traditional doctrinal depiction of the law with general theoretical insights that include economic analysis.

This volume brings together leading theoretical writings on legal fact-finding which are dispersed and not readily accessible.

This book examines systematically the underlying theory of evidence in Anglo-American legal systems and identifies the defining characteristics of adjudicative fact-finding. Stein develops a detailed innovative theory which sets aside the traditional vision of evidence law as facilitating the discovery of the truth. Combining probability theory, epistemology, economic analysis, and moral philosophy; he argues instead that the fundamental purpose of evidence law is to apportion the risk of error in conditions of uncertainty. Stein begins by identifying the domain of evidence law.He then describes the basic traits of adjudicative fact-finding and explores the epistemological foundations of the concept. This discussion identifies the problem of probabilistic deduction that accompanies generalizations to which fact-finders resort. This problem engenders paradoxes which Stein proposes to resolve by distinguishing between probability and weight. Stein advances the principle of maximal individualization that does not allow factfinders to make a finding against a person when the evidence they use is not susceptible to individualized testing.He argues that this principle has broad application, but may still be overridden by social utility. This analysis identifies allocation of the risk of error as requiring regulation by evidence law. Advocating a principled allocation of the risk of error, Stein denounces free proof for allowing individual judges to apportion this risk as they deem fit.He criticizes the UK's recent shift to a discretionary regime on similar grounds. Stein develops three fundamental principles for allocating the risk of error: the cost-efficiency principle which applies across the board; the equality principle which applies in civil litigation; and the equal best principle which applies in criminal trials. The cost-efficiency principle demands that fact-finders minimize the total cost of errors and error-avoidance.Under the equality principle, fact-finding procedures and decisions must not produce an unequal apportionment of the risk of error between the claimant and the defendant. This risk should be apportioned equally between the parties. The equal best principle sets forth two conditions for justifiably convicting and punishing a defendant. The state must do its best to protect the defendant from the risk of erroneous conviction and must not provide better protection to other individuals. Regulating both the admissibility of evidence and its sufficiency, these principles explain and justify many existing evidentiary rules. Alex Stein is Professor of Law at the Benjamin N.Cardozo School of Law,New York.