Waiting for Superman: How We Can Save America’s Failing Public Schools (ebook-Somers Public Library, Overdrive)

The American public education system is in crisis. Millions of students attend "failure factories" that produce more drop-outs than graduates; millions more attend "nice" schools that mask mediocre achievement. The U.S.'s reading and math scores stagnate and even fall behind, while other countries continue to advance. But many are working to reinvent this system. The film Waiting for "Superman," directed by An Inconvenient Truth's Davis Guggenheim, chronicles these efforts through the interlocking stories of a handful of students and families searching for alternatives, and of reform.

Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? (audiobook- Somers Public Library, Hoopla)

Ever wondered how Finland managed to build its highly regarded school system? Look behind the headlines and find out. Finnish Lessons is a firsthand, comprehensive account of how Finland built a world-class education system over the past three decades. The author traces the evolution of education policies in Finland and highlights how they differ from those in the United States and other industrialized countries. Rather than relying on competition, school choice, and external testing of students, education reforms in Finland focus on professionalizing teachers' work, developing instructional leadership in schools, and enhancing trust in teachers and schools. This book details the complexity of educational change and encourages educators and policy makers to develop effective solutions for their own districts and schools. Pasi Sahlberg recounts the history of Finnish educational reform as only a well-traveled insider can, offering the insight and facts necessary for others to constructively participate in improving their schools-even in a tightening economy.

The Smartest Kids in the World: and How They Got That Way (audiobook- Somers Public Library, Hoopla)

How do other countries create 'smarter' kids? In a handful of nations, virtually all children are learning to make complex arguments and solve problems they've never seen before. They are learning to think, in other words, and to thrive in the modern economy. What is it like to be a child in the world's new education superpowers? In a global quest to find answers for our own children, author and Time magazine journalist Amanda Ripley follows three Americans embedded in these countries for one year. Kim, fifteen, raises $10,000 so she can move from Oklahoma to Finland; Eric, eighteen, exchanges a high-achieving Minnesota suburb for a booming city in South Korea; and Tom, seventeen, leaves a historic Pennsylvania village for Poland. Through these young informants, Ripley meets battle-scarred reformers, sleep-deprived zombie students, and a teacher who earns $4 million a year. Their stories, along with groundbreaking research into learning in other cultures, reveal a pattern of startling transformation: none of these countries had many 'smart' kids a few decades ago. Things had changed. Teaching had become more rigorous; parents had focused on things that mattered; and children had bought into the promise of education. A journalistic tour de force, The Smartest Kids in the World is a book about building resilience in a new world-as told by the young Americans who have the most at stake.

Lessons of Hope (audiobook- Somers Public Library, Hoopla)

In 2002, New York City's newly elected mayor, Michael Bloomberg, made a historic announcement: his administration had won control of the city's school system in a first step toward reversing its precipitous decline. In a controversial move, he appointed Joel Klein, an accomplished lawyer from outside the education establishment, to lead this ambitious campaign.Lessons of Hope is Klein's inside account of his eight-year mission of improvement: demanding accountability, eliminating political favoritism, and battling a powerful teachers union that seemed determined to protect a status quo that didn't work for kids. Klein's initiatives resulted in more school choice, higher graduation rates, and improved test scores. The New York City model is now seen as a national standard for meaningful school reform. But the journey was not easy. Klein faced resistance and conflict at every turn.

Common formative Assessments 2.0: How Teachers Teams Intentionally Align standards, Instruction, and Assessment (Destiny Follett ebook)