As a field, education has largely failed to learn from experience. Time after time, promising education reforms fall short of their goals and are abandoned as other promising ideas take their place. In "Learning to Improve," the authors argue for a new approach. Rather than "implementing fast and learning slow," they believe…

Like medical practitioners, educators share the moral obligation to "first, do no harm." But as this provocative volume shows, education policies do not always live up to this ideal, especially policies intended to help our most vulnerable students. "When School Policies Backfire" draws our attention to education policies…

This book provides (1) specific information about overt classroom behaviors that affect or reflect academic success or failure, and (2) information and suggestions about alternative teaching strategies that may be used to increase behavioral effectiveness and subsequent academic achievement. The focus of the book is on specific behaviors, behavior…

The thesis that "as things are" some pupils enter school predisposed to success while some enter it predisposed to failure is explored in this book. The first question raised, in chapter 1, is why the schools are allowed to discount as irrelevant to the educational endeavor the experience of language and life that children bring to school with…

A major reason for the public's concern about curriculum and instruction at all levels of education has evolved because of the serious decline in student academic achievement. After two decades of innovation in teaching styles there are increasing complaints about academic grade inflation, functional illiteracy, and student inability to read,…

Intended to provide a basis for a sociolinguistic theory of reading by placing reading within a discussion of the formal and functional characteristics of language use in social settings, this book explores the state of the art of reading and literacy, the relations between spoken and written language, and explanations of reading failure. Chapters…

The eight chapters in this book are designed to present a rationale for a developmental reading program in the middle school and to provide middle school teachers with concrete suggestions for teaching reading. The first two chapters present an overview of middle school philosophy and the rationale for providing reading instruction at that level.…

This collection of papers examines key failures in modern U.S. education and shows how parents, policymakers, and teachers can make changes that will raise the level of student performance. The papers were presented at a 1997 conference designed to examine how elementary and secondary school students learn and are taught in the classroom. The…

This book is written primarily for special educators who offer resource and consultation support for students with mild handicaps and students at risk for school failure. Examples of consultation projects implemented and evaluated in the field are used to illustrate principles of effective consultation. Suggestions and guidelines are provided for…

Designed to assist parents, classroom teachers, reading specialists, and special educators, this book describes effective reading programs that promote reading success and achievement for children at all reading levels. The 10 chapters of the book are as follows: (1) "Preventing Reading Failure and Increasing Reading Achievement through Learning…