Jo Ann Parkerson – författare

The American Teacher is a comprehensive education foundations text with an emphasis on the historical continuity of educational issues and their practical application in the classroom. Aspiring teachers enter the classrooms with an innate optimism, and the challenge of The American Teacher is to engage them and to provide meaningful direction to channel their idealism. By reconnecting individuals with their society, community, and workplace, this engaging text provides education students with a grounding in their profession and an understanding of how important social and political issues affect educational practice.

The American Teacher is a comprehensive education foundations text with an emphasis on the historical continuity of educational issues and their practical application in the classroom. Aspiring teachers enter the classrooms with an innate optimism, and the challenge of The American Teacher is to engage them and to provide meaningful direction to channel their idealism. By reconnecting individuals with their society, community, and workplace, this engaging text provides education students with a grounding in their profession and an understanding of how important social and political issues affect educational practice.

American education has changed dramatically over the last century. The small, locally controlled school, supported by a concerned educational village fostered learning, personal accountability, patriotism and economic growth for a young nation. Today, however, American schools are typically large, consolidated, bureaucratic organizations controlled by state and/or municipal governments. The administration of these schools is hierarchical and corporate in form while its curriculum is oriented toward the needs of the business community. Assessment through standardized testing, moreover, has become the cornerstone of American education. Assessment, Bureaucracy, and Consolidation: TheIssues Facing Schools Today examines this remarkable transformation in the form and function of education and assesses the problems and possibilities for the future of schools and our nation. Additional key features of this book include: •A clear comprehensive history of the modern American school from the nineteenth century to the present and its impact on teachers, students, parents and the community at large•An Explanation of the impact of bureaucratic organization and the movement toward large schools •Critiques of past reform experiments in public education •A Placement of the contemporary standardized assessment movement in historical context•A reevaluation of the relationship between education and business •An evaluation of returning education to locally controlled schools, reconnecting educational practitioners with the educational village

The great pendulum of educational reform recently has begun its inexorable swing toward a new understanding of education. The thirty-year dominance of the authoritarian approach, complete with standardized assessments, distended bureaucracies and school consolidation based on the business model, appears to be over. Capped by the recent departure of the No Child Left behind Act and replaced with a new congressional authorization – the Every Child Achieves Act – we are witnessing a distinct move toward a more democratic model of education. This book places the tension between these two broadly defined archetypes in the context of the central themes of American education. These include the structure and organization of American schools, the struggle for diversity, curriculum and instruction, classroom discipline, moral education, testing and assessment, and the rights and responsibilities of teachers and students. By organizing these themes into a more understandable and relevant thematic context, readers will be able to appreciate the changes in the field of education over the years as well as the cacophonous bickering over education policy - today and yesterday.

The great pendulum of educational reform recently has begun its inexorable swing toward a new understanding of education. The thirty-year dominance of the authoritarian approach, complete with standardized assessments, distended bureaucracies and school consolidation based on the business model, appears to be over. Capped by the recent departure of the No Child Left behind Act and replaced with a new congressional authorization – the Every Child Achieves Act – we are witnessing a distinct move toward a more democratic model of education. This book places the tension between these two broadly defined archetypes in the context of the central themes of American education. These include the structure and organization of American schools, the struggle for diversity, curriculum and instruction, classroom discipline, moral education, testing and assessment, and the rights and responsibilities of teachers and students. By organizing these themes into a more understandable and relevant thematic context, readers will be able to appreciate the changes in the field of education over the years as well as the cacophonous bickering over education policy - today and yesterday.

Ten Days that Shook the World of Education: A Close Look at the People who Facilitated Educational Change focuses on the critical moments that changed the course of our unique educational experiment. These important incidents reveal how everyday people such as Jean Jacque Rousseau, Joseph Lancaster, Emma Willard, Horace Mann, William McGuffey, John Dewey, W.E.B. DuBois, Horace Mann Bond, Thurgood Marshall, and the kids at Parkland High School did extraordinary things and took a stand against injustice to change educational history. By centering our attention on individuals who faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles and then acted to challenge them, we offer a more personal perspective on what has been called the greatest social experiment of man.

Ten Days that Shook the World of Education: A Close Look at the People who Facilitated Educational Change focuses on the critical moments that changed the course of our unique educational experiment. These important incidents reveal how everyday people such as Jean Jacque Rousseau, Joseph Lancaster, Emma Willard, Horace Mann, William McGuffey, John Dewey, W.E.B. DuBois, Horace Mann Bond, Thurgood Marshall, and the kids at Parkland High School did extraordinary things and took a stand against injustice to change educational history. By centering our attention on individuals who faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles and then acted to challenge them, we offer a more personal perspective on what has been called the greatest social experiment of man.

The Arc of Educational Change places American educational history into a realistic, modern historical context that recognizes both the importance of collaboration as well as the role of individuals who traditionally have been excluded from our educational narrative. These include women, African Americans, immigrants and working people. At a time when individualism has come to dominate our world and we often celebrate the accomplishments of the great figures of the past and present, we sometimes forget that cooperation, collaboration, and networking have always been at the heart of progress, change and improvement of our social order, our economy, and our educational system.The Arc of Educational Change provides a balanced perspective of American educational history that recognizes both the important role of individuals as well as a diverse set of collaborators who helped promote equity, inclusion, and justice in our schools.