Read more
Informationen zum Autor Walter S. Polka is professor of leadership and coordinator of the PhD program at Niagara University with over fifty-five years in education, including thirteen years as superintendent of schools. John William McKenna is associate professor of moderate disabilities and an affiliate of the Center for Autism Research and Education (CARE) at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Klappentext This book is about doing what's right for public education in the United States in this age of intensive curriculum convergence, planned instructional standardization, and oppressive accountability procedures. Information is presented about why and how educators, parents, students, community members, and policy-makers have decided to protest against current state and federal educational policies and procedures. The practical experiences of parents, teachers, principals, school superintendents, school board members, and professors are analyzed in chapters of this book. Their first-hand experiences with the various components of the current reform movement are poignantly presented. Through their voices the frustrations with the serious flaws associated with this reform agenda are passionately and logically articulated. They comprehensively explain their personal and professional motivations for organizing and fomenting a rethinking in school reform implementation procedures and they advocate their "smarter approach" to school reforms in our country. The book includes key references that elucidate the need to seriously re-think the directions and strategies of contemporary schooling in order to maintain enlightened creative instruction based on exciting student-centered curriculum experiences and professional educational judgments. Inhaltsverzeichnis Foreword Preface: Confronting Oppressive Assessments: How Parents, Educators, and Policy-Makers Are Rethinking Current Educational Reforms Walter S. Polka and John McKenna Chapter One: What Are We Really Doing to our Children? Rethinking Federal and State Education Reform Policies Walter S. Polka and John E. McKenna Chapter Two: Using an Industrial Age Paradigm for Education is Not Smart, Especially in the Digital Age John E. McKenna and Walter S. Polka Chapter Three:The Lack of Joy in Learning: Parents Want to Know Why Children Don't Like School Anymore Douglas J. Regan and Mary Beth Carroll Chapter Four: Why Teachers Are Frustrated Ashli Dreher and Kathy Brown Chapter Five: High-Stakes Test Anxieties for All Children: Parents, Teachers, and Pscyhologists Voice Concerns Laura Stewart-Beach, Kathy Brown, and Greg Fabiano Chapter Six:Principals with Principles: The Dilemma of Implementing Destructive Polices Charles Smilinich, Mark Mambretti, Douglas Regan, and John McKenna Chapter Seven: Superintendents' Perspectives: Fighting for Local Control and Justice in Education for All Jeffrey Robert Rabey Chapter Eight: Thoughts on What to Do Next at the Local Level John McKenna and Walter Polka Chapter Nine: A Dwindling Second Chance: High School Dropouts and the 2014 GED® Exam Rachael J. Rossi Chapter Ten: Everyone is Now a "Teacher of the Core"-Even Higher Education is Converged in This Reform Movement Susan Krickovich and Donna Phillips Chapter Eleven: Political Perspectives Regarding Changing the Current Educational Reform Agenda: The Winds of Change are Blowing Stronger Walter S. Polka and John E. McKenna Chapter Twelve: Why Not Create a Brighter Future for All of Our Students by Legislative Changes to the Educational Current Reforms? What If We Just Do It? John E. McKenna and Walter S. Polka Appendix About the Editors About the Contributors ...
