Today, educators are looking for ways to utilize classroom time more effectively. Many thoughtful and forward-looking educators have reorganized the school calendar from the traditional nine-month model to one which is more balanced, and they have experienced the effects of calendar modification in the classroom, school, district, and community. Balancing the School Calendar is a compilation of perspectives and research reports from those who have experienced the urgent necessity of reorganizing time to effectuate better learning situations for students. Chapter authors have implemented, studied, or contemplated school calendar change and the results of the change.

In this genial and challenging overview of endless debates over school reform, Rick Hess shows that even bitter opponents in debates about how to improve schools agree on much more than they realize and that much of it must change radically. Cutting through the tangled thickets of right- and left-wing dogma, he clears the ground for transformation of the American school system.

Whatever they think of school vouchers or charter schools, teacher merit pay or bilingual education, most educators and advocates take many other things for granted. The one-teacher one-classroom model. The professional full-time teacher. Students grouped in age-defined grades. The nine-month calendar. Top-down local district control. All were innovative and exciting in the nineteenth century. As Hess shows, the system hasn t changed since most Americans lived on farms and in villages, since school taught you to read, write, and do arithmetic, and since only an elite went to high school, let alone college.

Arguing that a fundamentally nineteenth century system can t be right for a twenty-first century world, Hess suggests that uniformity gets in the way of quality, and urges us to create a much wider variety of schools, to meet a greater range of needs for different kinds of talents, needed by a vastly more complex and demanding society.

How can the Common Core complement and not conflict with school improvement efforts already at work across the United States? How can it be seamlessly integrated into accountability systems, teacher preparation and development, charter schools, and educational technology? This timely volume brings together prominent scholars and policy analysts to examine the pressing issues that will mark Common Core implementation. Whether or not you agree with the standards, the Common Core is coming, and this book will help policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders anticipate the challenges and take steps to address them.

An invigorating examination of the potential for meaningful change in education, from one of the nation's most astute observers of schooling and school improvement. In The Great School Rethink, education policy sentinel Frederick M. Hess offers a pithy and perceptive appraisal of American schooling and finds, in the uncertain period following pandemic disruption, an ideal moment to reimagine US education. Now is the time, he asserts, to ask hard questions about how schools use time and talent, how they work with parents, what they do with digital tools, and how they meet the needs of their communities. As Hess explains, to rethink is to acknowledge the realities of the education system while opening one’s mind to possibility. With characteristic verve and wit, Hess guides readers through his rethink process, a versatile and easily implemented approach to identifying issues and brainstorming possible responses. He encourages readers to explore what improvements might alleviate current pressures and frustrations, such as teacher shortages and burnout, declining student performance, and compromised learning time. Whether their goal is to achieve better student engagement, increase parent involvement, or implement personalized learning, readers will develop the mindset to ask the right questions, to fully understand the problem that’s being solved, and to evaluate the probable effectiveness of proposed solutions. Brimming with challenging questions, robust exercises, and eye-opening data, this book is a must-read for education professionals, parent advocates, and anyone passionate about the future of American education.

Today, educators are looking for ways to utilize classroom time more effectively. Many thoughtful and forward-looking educators have reorganized the school calendar from the traditional nine-month model to one which is more balanced, and they have experienced the effects of calendar modification in the classroom, school, district, and community. Balancing the School Calendar is a compilation of perspectives and research reports from those who have experienced the urgent necessity of reorganizing time to effectuate better learning situations for students. Chapter authors have implemented, studied, or contemplated school calendar change and the results of the change.

For more than a decade, school choice has been a flashpoint in debates about our nation's schooling. Perhaps the most commonly advanced argument for school choice is the notion that markets will force public schools to improve, particularly in those urban areas where improvement has proved so elusive. However, the question of how public schools respond to market conditions has received surprisingly little attention. Revolution at the Margins examines the impact of school vouchers and charter schooling on three urban school districts, explores the causes of the behavior observed, and explains how the structure of competition is likely to shape the way it affects the future of public education. The book draws on research conducted in three school districts at the center of the school choice debate during the 1990s: Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Cleveland, Ohio; and Edgewood, Texas. Case studies examine each of these three districts from the inception of their local school choice program through the conclusion of the 1999 school year. The three school districts studied did not respond to competition by emphasizing productivity or efficiency. Instead, under pressure to provide some evidence of response, administrators tended to expand public relations efforts and to chip holes in the rules, regulations, and procedures that regulate public sector organizations. Inefficient practices were not rooted out, but some rules and procedures that protect employees and vocal constituencies were relaxed. Public school systems are driven by political logic, according to Hess, and their incentives lead them to respond generally through symbolic and metaphorical gestures. Choice-induced changes in public school systems will be shaped by public governance, the market context in which they operate, and their organizational characteristics. Revolution at the Margins encourages scholars and policymakers to think more carefully about the costs and benefits of educational competition, to understand how competitive effects will be heavily shaped by the outcomes of more conventional efforts to reform schooling, and to reevaluate some of the facile promises of market-based education reform.

“By nearly every measure, Americans are less engaged in their communities and political activity than generations past.” So write the editors of this volume, who survey the current practices and history of citizenship education in the United States. They argue that the current period of “creative destruction”—when schools are closing and opening in response to reform mandates—is an ideal time to take an in-depth look at how successful strategies and programs promote civic education and good citizenship. Making Civics Count offers research-based insights into what diverse students and teachers know and do as civic actors, and proposes a blueprint for civic education for a new generation that is both practical and visionary.