R&L Education – serie

High school students, whether preparing for college or career, need to learn greater independence and efficiency in their learning. Rather than simply teach them how to study, the hm Program emphasizes the need to understand their learning style, empowering them to adapt to new situations throughout their lives. They will learn how to improve their memory, glean more from discussions, prepare for exams, expand their vocabulary, and more.

Do your students have difficulty understanding math terms? Remembering the steps of algorithms in sequence? Interpreting data in displays?Our math study skills program will help you teach them math and how to learn! Math has its own vocabulary, notation, and procedures. Just as working with integers is a learned skill, so are the abilities to listen, problem solve, locate information, and take a test. Throughout the hm Program, we assume that problem solving should be the central focus of the mathematics curriculum.Study skills are for everyone: many students who do well in math can benefit from learning how to organize their skills into a useful system. Others who are doing poorly may lack proficiency in learning and study skills and will need to learn both the skill and systematic ways of using them. The solution is often a combination of study skills and a dose of self-confidence. As students gain effective learning skills, they become more competent and confident learners. For grades 7 and up.

Math (Grades 6-10)Do your students have difficulty understanding math terms? Remembering the steps of algorithms in sequence? Interpreting data in displays?Our math study skills program will help you teach them math and how to learn!Essential to the program is the comprehensive Teacher's Guide. It provides a focus on the importance of study skills, directions for using the student text, and practical suggestions for both the experienced and inexperienced teacher.

Science: Grades 7-10Science learning and study skills are strategies and methods for solving problems of any sort. Specific skills include interpreting charts and graphs, using scientific measuring tools and learning the scientific method, but a student who gains mastery of these has really discovered how to learn effectively in any situation. Instead of isolating these skills, the hm Program also provides instruction in energy production and use—issues of vital importance as we enter a new millennium and gain a more global understanding of our environment.

Level A: Grades 1-2Our learning & study skills program will help elementary school teachers teach their children how to learn. Essential to the program is the comprehensive Teacher's Guide. It provides a focus on the importance of study skills, directions for using the student text, and practical suggestions for both the experienced and inexperienced teacher.

Level B: Grades 3-4Children of the elementary school age think differently than do older children, adolescents, or adults. They are more holistic in their interaction with the world. The hm Program presents study skills appropriate for young children, teaching them to listen, observe, and visualize with greater awareness. Each student workbook teaches and reinforces the essential skills students need to be successful: skills for perceiving, organizing, making sense of, and using ideas and data. The workbook functions as a text for learning study skills and as a reference resource throughout the year.

Level B: Grades 3-4Our learning & study skills program will help elementary school teachers teach their children how to learn. Essential to the program is the comprehensive Teacher's Guide. It provides a focus on the importance of study skills, directions for using the student text, and practical suggestions for both the experienced and inexperienced teacher.

Referrals, suspensions, and expulsions of African American students, especially males, are at an all-time high. However, as this book shows, culturally determined assumptions and friction over communication have a role to play in this as well. Eliminating Racial Profiling in School Discipline is designed to make readers aware of how cultural factors relate to the ways that discipline is meted out. Administrators and teachers will gain an understanding of how culturally conditioned beliefs and assumptions negatively influence student-teacher relationships. Ultimately, this book proposes a set of strategies to solve increased disciplinary referrals.

Level I: Grades 5-7Do teachers in your school complain that kids just don't pay attention?Show your students how to study smart with the hm Learning & Study Skills Program. Essential to the program is the comprehensive Teacher's Guide. It provides a focus on the importance of study skills, directions for using the student text, and practical suggestions for both the experienced and inexperienced teach

School superintendents provide leadership and inspiration in school districts across the country. They must be skilled collaborators who can rally resources to support better education for all children living in our multicultural society. Professional standards will help to ensure excellence in the American school superintendency. Developed by a special AASA Commission on Standards for the Superintendency and reviewed by a national 'Jury of 100' business and education leaders, these eight standards combine administrative knowledge with research on performance goals, competencies and skills in the following areas: leadership and district culture; policy and governance; communications and community relations; organizational management; curriculum planning and development; instructional management; human resources management; and the values and ethics of leadership.

Classroom Voices on Education and Race presents core educational issues— with an emphasis on race and the racial achievement gap, school culture, and curriculum—through the unfiltered and poignant voices of high school students. Students from urban, rural, and suburban public schools express a strong desire for a more active role in their classrooms, as well as for a curriculum that is more responsive to their world.Current students speak out against an increasingly complex and demanding world in which standardized testing serves to detach students from their learning and from their peers. They bear witness to increasingly competitive, content-driven classrooms that minimize open communication and critical thinking, and instead foster a culture of and cheating. And, they expose a hidden curriculum that contradicts the learning expectations of formal education. In particular, they speak to the persistence of racial stereotypes and segregation. Burdened by ignorance and misunderstandings, students address the need for honest racial dialogue facilitated by adults in their desire to cross the racial divide. Educators must listen to the voices from their classrooms in order to better participate in the lives and education of their students.

The changing demographics of students and educators in schools today suggest that much of what we do as educational leaders revolves around the complex issues related to our various cultural understandings. In this book the authors discuss the relationship between culture and conflict and provide a continuum to better understand the basis for much cultural conflict. Authors emphasize a systematic framework that can be used to guide the practitioner in resolving conflicts rooted in cultural issues – from less difficult issues such as the cultural conflicts that occur on a campus between academic cultures and athletic cultures, to the more complicated and delicate issues rooted in racial or sexual identity issues.

The changing demographics of students and educators in schools today suggest that much of what we do as educational leaders revolves around the complex issues related to our various cultural understandings. In this book the authors discuss the relationship between culture and conflict and provide a continuum to better understand the basis for much cultural conflict. Authors emphasize a systematic framework that can be used to guide the practitioner in resolving conflicts rooted in cultural issues – from less difficult issues such as the cultural conflicts that occur on a campus between academic cultures and athletic cultures, to the more complicated and delicate issues rooted in racial or sexual identity issues.

Best Leadership Practices for High-Poverty Schools presents both the practice and theory of best leadership practices in high-poverty schools. Authors Linda Lyman and Christine Villani take a unique approach by inviting readers into two high-poverty elementary schools where they will experience, through in-depth case studies, how two extraordinary principals model and practice their beliefs in the ability and worth of all children. Lyman and Villani demonstrate that a successful learning community for children of low-income families is based on the beliefs and attitudes of the school leader and the entire school community. Preparation programs for school principals typically do not provide for study of the complexity of poverty or the leadership practices that contribute to successful learning and achievement for children in high-poverty schools. The concluding questions that the authors pose provide a guide to developing best leadership practices that make a difference to the learning, achievement, and lives of children who live in poverty.This book offers: an insightful overview of research about leadership strategies and beliefs in high-poverty schools, causes and remedies for the achievement gap, evidence of continuing racial and ethnic prejudice, the widespread deficit thinking that limits learning. The authors challenge leaders, teachers, staff members, and others to examine their own attitudes and beliefs and then to commit to creating successful learning communities for all children from low-income families. This book is written as a resource for aspiring and practicing principals, or anyone interested in improving educational opportunities for children from families living in poverty.

Public education in America has undergone a vast series of changes during the last four decades. The majority of these changes are driven by policy—the most recent, No Child Left Behind—but regardless of laws passed, principals and school leaders across the country are scrambling to discover ways to unleash the next breakthrough in public education—success for all. In many parts of the country, that success must come on dwindling resources. Over the years much has been written about excellence, equity, and efficiency. The ongoing struggle for administrators and educational leaders is to discover how these apparent conflicting values can not only be survived but also managed to produce unprecedented results in school improvement. Excellence, Equity, and Efficiency presents a "Quality School Improvement" (QSI) framework for overcoming the conflict that exists between these values and provides recommendations for principals and policymakers to meet the demands for accountability and continuous improvement based upon that framework. Researched and written by a fulltime practicing principal in the field, this book: documents hundreds of actual events and struggles that principals have faced while attempting to manage the demands these values present, includes a story of the author's school and district that is successfully rejecting both the notion of social promotion and retention in their attempt to reconcile excellence, equity, and efficiency through the concept of priority leadership.

Here, the authors focus on educators who dare to lead their schools, districts, universities, and educational organizations to new possibilities. The leadership practices of the individuals featured contribute significantly to craft knowledge and to the discourse on contemporary issues of educational leadership. These leaders develop collaborative decision-making processes, push the bureaucratic boundaries, claim power through politics, and live and lead from values. The authors contend that the leadership practices depicted reflect a redefinition of leadership that emanates from a constructive postmodern paradigm aimed at social reconstruction. These leaders are redefining leadership by integrating doing and being. This book is a report of the results of a collective qualitative inquiry into the leadership of eighteen impressive women educational leaders from Illinois, representing a diversity of roles, community sizes, institutional types, and racial perspectives. The chapters intertwine personal stories with the scholarship about leadership. No pseudonyms are used. Although several recent books have been published about the experiences of women as leaders, leadership studies have generally not included women or failed to point to women leaders as role models who could, even should, be emulated by leaders of both genders. It is past time to close the gender leadership gap in educational administration. This book will contribute to the ongoing redefinition of leadership and perhaps after reading this book leaders who dare will move themselves and our culture closer to gender inclusive perceptions of what leadership is and who leaders are.

Contrary to some of the nation's most prominent newspapers, politicians and educational administrators, and the evening news, there is absolutely nothing simplistic and straightforward about the current movement to uniform public school students in the United States. The debate over whether to require uniforms is highly controversial, undeniably complex, and, from the analyses and arguments presented in this book, unquestionably rooted in multifaceted social, political, legal, cultural, racial material, and educational structures. Much of the empirical research on school uniform policies' effectiveness has remained in dissertation and/or policy brief formats. This book provides an antidote to the ungrounded, anecdotal components that define the contemporary conversation regarding policies of standardized dress in American K-12 districts and schools. The contributors draw upon years of educational teaching and administrative experience, as well as research directed at objectively and empirically understanding the issue of school uniform policies elementary and middle schools. Uniforms in Public Schools is of the utmost importance for those who wish to be informed and insightful participants in the contemporary debate on school uniform policies.

Contrary to some of the nation's most prominent newspapers, politicians and educational administrators, and the evening news, there is absolutely nothing simplistic and straightforward about the current movement to uniform public school students in the United States. The debate over whether to require uniforms is highly controversial, undeniably complex, and, from the analyses and arguments presented in this book, unquestionably rooted in multifaceted social, political, legal, cultural, racial material, and educational structures. Much of the empirical research on school uniform policies' effectiveness has remained in dissertation and/or policy brief formats. This book provides an antidote to the ungrounded, anecdotal components that define the contemporary conversation regarding policies of standardized dress in American K-12 districts and schools. The contributors draw upon years of educational teaching and administrative experience, as well as research directed at objectively and empirically understanding the issue of school uniform policies elementary and middle schools. Uniforms in Public Schools is of the utmost importance for those who wish to be informed and insightful participants in the contemporary debate on school uniform policies.

Forced to Fail traces the long legal history of first racial segregation, and then racial desegregation in America. The authors explain how rapidly changing demographics and family structure in the United States have greatly complicated the project of top-down government efforts to achieve an "ideal" racial balance in schools. It describes how social capital—a positive outcome of social interaction between and among parents, children, and teachers—creates strong bonds that lead to high academic achievement. The authors show how coercive desegregation weakens bonds and hurts not only students and schools, but also entire communities. Examples from all parts of the United States show how parents undermined desegregation plans by seeking better educational alternatives for their children rather than supporting the public schools to which their children were assigned. Most important, this book offers an alternative, more realistic viewpoint on class, race, and education in America.

Teacher leadership is a critical component to achieving breakthrough results in school improvement. Developed from anecdotal evidence from dozens of teacher leaders and administrators, Follow the Teacher advocates that all teachers can and should take on leadership roles in their schools. It contains many stories of teacher leadership in action, staff activities to increase teacher leadership, quotes from teachers who are operating as leaders, and solutions for dilemmas teachers may encounter during their leadership journey.Follow the Teacher also focuses on system design. Within its pages is a blueprint for designing a system where teacher leadership flourishes. Principals are chiefly responsible for the effective design of the system, and this book will help them foster the conditions that will generate teacher leadership in their schools. Readers will not only be inspired by the examples of teacher leadership throughout this book, but will also understand ways that teacher leadership can be intentionally infused into a school system.

Teacher leadership is a critical component to achieving breakthrough results in school improvement. Developed from anecdotal evidence from dozens of teacher leaders and administrators, Follow the Teacher advocates that all teachers can and should take on leadership roles in their schools. It contains many stories of teacher leadership in action, staff activities to increase teacher leadership, quotes from teachers who are operating as leaders, and solutions for dilemmas teachers may encounter during their leadership journey.Follow the Teacher also focuses on system design. Within its pages is a blueprint for designing a system where teacher leadership flourishes. Principals are chiefly responsible for the effective design of the system, and this book will help them foster the conditions that will generate teacher leadership in their schools. Readers will not only be inspired by the examples of teacher leadership throughout this book, but will also understand ways that teacher leadership can be intentionally infused into a school system.

Teenagers are perplexing, intriguing, and spirited creatures. In an attempt to discover the secrets to their thoughts and actions, parents have tried talking, cajoling, and begging them for answers. The result has usually been just more confusion. But new and exciting light is being shed on these mysterious young adults.What was once thought to be hormones run amuck can now be explained with modern medical technology. MRI and PET scans view the human brain while it is alive and functioning. To no one's surprise, the teenage brain is under heavy construction! These discoveries are helping parents understand the (until now) unexplainable teenager. Neuroscience can help parents adjust to the highs and lows of teenage behavior. Typically, this transformation is a prickly proposition for both teens and their families, but the trials and tribulations of adolescence give teenagers a second chance to develop and create the brain they will take into adulthood.

The suspension and expulsion of ethnic minority students, especially African American males , remains a critical issue in schools today. This book addresses the root causes of racial disparity in discipline. Dr. Bireda shows how culturally conditioned beliefs and cultural misunderstanding negatively impact teacher-student relationships and interactions in the classroom. In addition, factors in the school climate that may precipitate and escalate disciplinary events are examined. Ultimately, Cultures In Conflict provides a framework which assists administrators and teachers in establishing a dialogue on issues related to race and culture, and provides a set of strategies for reducing disciplinary events and referrals.

The suspension and expulsion of ethnic minority students, especially African American males , remains a critical issue in schools today. This book addresses the root causes of racial disparity in discipline. Dr. Bireda shows how culturally conditioned beliefs and cultural misunderstanding negatively impact teacher-student relationships and interactions in the classroom. In addition, factors in the school climate that may precipitate and escalate disciplinary events are examined. Ultimately, Cultures In Conflict provides a framework which assists administrators and teachers in establishing a dialogue on issues related to race and culture, and provides a set of strategies for reducing disciplinary events and referrals.

Mentoring is a hot buzzword these days. Unfortunately, although the word "mentoring" is used all the time, most people do not know what it means. This book fills that gap by describing and illustrating the essential practices of outstanding mentors. It provides a realistic look at mentoring by showing what goes on in a mentoring relationship and what mentors actually do with their protégés. This book makes a unique contribution through its hands-on approach to the thorny issue of cross-racial and cross-cultural differences in mentoring relationships. The book shows how such differences can be handled successfully and can even enrich a mentoring relationship. Specific mentoring practices and their racial/cultural implications are presented and explained. The book gives readers a clear sense of what they can do to mentor and make a real difference, even when their protégés are radically different from themselves.

In Steady and Strong: People Skills for Principals, Russ Thompson describes his experiences as the successful principal of three urban high schools. The challenges he faced ranged from gang activity and racial conflicts, to low expectations and ineffective teaching. Most of these challenges involved people issues. No matter what went wrong, he had to find a way to overcome obstacles and keep moving forward. Thompson takes you behind the scenes to learn from his mistakes and examine the strategies he used to solve problems and make improvements. He also provides important tools that will help you to achieve success and create a school where every student learns at high levels every day.