This handbook is a resource for parents, community members, teachers, and administrators who want to make a difference in their urban schools. Breault and Allen provide a way for stakeholders to see the roles they can play in building civic capacity for change in urban schools and communities. It also offers critical background information to help stakeholders recognize the complexity and necessity of their efforts.

The authors organized this book around the need for beginning, continuing, and enacting conversations to emphasize the need for stakeholders to build relationships with one another in order to advocate for and act on behalf of urban students and communities. While this book eschews prescriptive and simplistic solutions, it does offer ways in which stakeholders create and support an infrastructure for change in their schools and communities. For example, this book helps stakeholders navigate the bureaucracy of urban school districts, build collegial communities of inquiry within schools, develop systematic ways of gathering important data schools and communities, organize the energy and efforts of those who want to get involved, seek out, and utilize various resources, and then use the infrastructure of knowledgeable and collegial stakeholders to bring about change. The authors realize how daunting these challenges may seem for stakeholders who want to make a difference in their schools and communities. In response, they offer images of positive changes including schools, parent associations, and networking strategies used in urban communities today as glimpses of what is possible through hard work, collaboration, and an imaginative spirit.

Professional Development Schools: Researching Lessons from the Field provides a comprehensive analysis of PDS research that can aid PDS stakeholders in designing and sustaining meaningful research in their partnerships. Breault and Breault used an extensive qualitative meta-synthesis to examine the research over the past 20 years. Their comprehensive review of 300 studies provides a.deep understanding of the challenges and potential within PDSs. The authors offer analysis regarding key elements of PDSs and highlight strong studies including a large-scale, multi-site study and studies using mixed methods and action research effectively. They also highlight exemplary studies showing how pilot studies are effective ways to research new partnerships, how theory can lead to greater abstraction, and how metaphor can clarify complex relationships. This book is an essential resource for all stakeholders involved in professional development schools.

This book has won the "O.L. Davis, Jr. Outstanding Book Award" 2015 from the American Association for Teaching and Curriculum (AATC) Curriculum as Spaces: Aesthetics, Community, and the Politics of Place can be viewed as a holistic approach to education, conservation, and community development that uses place as an integrating context for learning. It argues that curriculum and place is a much deeper subject, with roots in aesthetics, community, and politics that go beyond the individual and profoundly address the formation of our current belief system. Despite the unique efforts described in this book to address the curriculum of space, major issues persist in our educational system. First, the rigor of curriculum studies is not usually applied to this complex field that encompasses philosophy, aesthetics, geography, social theory, and history. Second, the conflict caused by studying the place without contextualizing it within the larger social milieu ignores the nuances of our intimately global social network. Third, current responses ignore the uncritical assessment of underrepresented groups within the theoretical landscape. With these problems in mind, Curriculum as Spaces introduces foundational principles that ask us to imagine the full realization of curriculum spaces and show us how to examine the philosophical and cultural roots of these most essential principles.

This book has won the "O.L. Davis, Jr. Outstanding Book Award" 2015 from the American Association for Teaching and Curriculum (AATC) Curriculum as Spaces: Aesthetics, Community, and the Politics of Place can be viewed as a holistic approach to education, conservation, and community development that uses place as an integrating context for learning. It argues that curriculum and place is a much deeper subject, with roots in aesthetics, community, and politics that go beyond the individual and profoundly address the formation of our current belief system. Despite the unique efforts described in this book to address the curriculum of space, major issues persist in our educational system. First, the rigor of curriculum studies is not usually applied to this complex field that encompasses philosophy, aesthetics, geography, social theory, and history. Second, the conflict caused by studying the place without contextualizing it within the larger social milieu ignores the nuances of our intimately global social network. Third, current responses ignore the uncritical assessment of underrepresented groups within the theoretical landscape. With these problems in mind, Curriculum as Spaces introduces foundational principles that ask us to imagine the full realization of curriculum spaces and show us how to examine the philosophical and cultural roots of these most essential principles.

Experiencing Dewey: Insights for Today's Classroom offers an inspiring introduction to one of the most seminal figures in the field of education. In this collection of essays, contemporary authors consider their favorite quotations from John Dewey's bountiful works and share how Dewey has impacted their teaching practices. Responses are organized around the themes introduced in the first edition: active learning, the educative experience, critical thinking, inquiry and education, and democratic citizenship, plus a new section on accountability added for the second edition. Quotes and responses are kept deliberately brief as an effective way of inviting readers to reflect on and experience Dewey. Co-published with Kappa Delta Pi, International Honor Society in Education, Experiencing Dewey remains a powerful resource for current and aspiring teachers. This thoroughly updated edition also includes online resources for teacher educators to help facilitate the book's use in higher education courses.

Experiencing Dewey: Insights for Today's Classroom offers an inspiring introduction to one of the most seminal figures in the field of education. In this collection of essays, contemporary authors consider their favorite quotations from John Dewey's bountiful works and share how Dewey has impacted their teaching practices. Responses are organized around the themes introduced in the first edition: active learning, the educative experience, critical thinking, inquiry and education, and democratic citizenship, plus a new section on accountability added for the second edition. Quotes and responses are kept deliberately brief as an effective way of inviting readers to reflect on and experience Dewey. Co-published with Kappa Delta Pi, International Honor Society in Education, Experiencing Dewey remains a powerful resource for current and aspiring teachers. This thoroughly updated edition also includes online resources for teacher educators to help facilitate the book's use in higher education courses.