Education

From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Will Bunch, the epic untold story of college--the great political and cultural fault line of American life

"This book is simply terrific." --Heather Cox Richardson, publisher of the "Letters from an American" Substack

"Ambitious and engrossing." --New York Times Book Review

"A must-read." --Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains

Today there are two Americas, separate and unequal, one educated and one not. And these two tribes--the resentful "non-college" crowd and their diploma-bearing yet increasingly disillusioned adversaries--seem on the brink of a civil war. The strongest determinant of whether a voter was likely to support Donald Trump in 2016 was whether or not they attended college, and the degree of loathing they reported feeling toward the so-called "knowledge economy of clustered, educated elites. Somewhere in the winding last half-century of the United States, the quest for a college diploma devolved from being proof of America's commitment to learning, science, and social mobility into a kind of Hunger Games contest to the death. That quest has infuriated both the millions who got shut out and millions who got into deep debt to stay afloat.

In After the Ivory Tower Falls, award-winning journalist Will Bunch embarks on a deeply reported journey to the heart of the American Dream. That journey begins in Gambier, Ohio, home to affluent, liberal Kenyon College, a tiny speck of Democratic blue amidst the vast red swath of white, post-industrial, rural midwestern America. To understand "the college question," there is no better entry point than Gambier, where a world-class institution caters to elite students amidst a sea of economic despair.

From there, Bunch traces the history of college in the U.S., from the landmark GI Bill through the culture wars of the 60's and 70's, which found their start on college campuses. We see how resentment of college-educated elites morphed into a rejection of knowledge itself--and how the explosion in student loan debt fueled major social movements like Occupy Wall Street. Bunch then takes a question we need to ask all over again--what, and who, is college even for?--and pushes it into the 21st century by proposing a new model that works for all Americans.

The sum total is a stunning work of journalism, one that lays bare the root of our political, cultural, and economic division--and charts a path forward for America.

Drawing on student publications of the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as interviews with student activists, former administrators, and faculty, Williamson discusses the emergence of Black Power ideology, what constituted "blackness," and notions of self-advancement versus racial solidarity. Promoting an understanding of the role of black youth in protest movements, Black Power on Campus is an important contribution to the literature on African American liberation movements and the reform of American higher education.

Shortlisted for the UK Literacy Association's Academic Book Award 2021

This volume explores the literacy education master's degree program developed at Universidad de Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico, with the aim of addressing the nation's emerging social, economic, technological, and political needs. Developing the program required taking into account the cultural diversity, historical economic disparities, indigenous and colonial cultures, and power inequities of the Mexican nation. These conditions have produced economic structures that maintain the status quo that concentrates wealth and opportunity in the hands of the very few, creating challenges for the education and economic life for the majority of the population. The program advocates providing tools for youth to critique and change their surroundings, while also learning the codes of power that provide them a repertoire of navigational means for producing satisfying lives.

Rather than arguing that the program can be replicated or taken to scale in different contexts, the editors focus on how their process of looking inward to consider Mexican cultures enabled them to develop an appropriate educational program to address Mexico's historically low literacy rates. They show that if all teaching and learning is context-dependent, then focusing on the process of program development, rather than on the outcomes that may or may not be easily applied to other settings, is appropriate for global educators seeking to provide literacy teacher education grounded in national concerns and challenges. The volume provides a process model for developing an organic program designed to address needs in a national context, especially one grounded in both colonial and heritage cultures and one in which literacy is understood as a tool for social critique, redress, advancement, and equity.

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The Best Practice

Long before she was tapped by President Trump to serve as secretary of education, DeVos established herself as one of the country's most influential advocates for education reform, from school choice and charter schools to protecting free speech on campus. She's unflinching in standing up to the powerful interests who control and benefit from the status quo in education - which is why the unions, the media, and the radical left made her public enemy number one.

Now, DeVos is ready to tell her side of the story after years of being vilified by the radical left for championing common-sense, conservative reforms in America's schools.

In Hostages No More, DeVos unleashes her candid thoughts about working in the Trump administration, recounts her battles over the decades to put students first, hits back at "woke" curricula in our schools, and details the reforms America must pursue to fix its long and badly broken education system. And she has stories to tell: DeVos offers blunt insights on the people and politics that stand in the way of fixing our schools.

For students, families and concerned citizens, DeVos shares a roadmap for reclaiming education and securing the futures of our kids - and America.

Jamie Lee Curtis says: "A must-read. "

Booklist: "Parents will enjoy the humor, drama, and poignancy of this collection."

The ultimate college search guide

Acceptance by a top college is more than a gold star on a high school graduate's forehead today. It has morphed into the ultimate good parenting stamp of approval--the better the bumper sticker, the better the parent, right? Parents of juniors and seniors in high school fret over SAT scores and essays, obsessed with getting their kids into the right college, while their children push for independence.

I'm Going to College---Not You! is a resource for parents, written by parents who've been in their shoes. Kenyon College dean Jennifer Delahunty shares her unique perspective (and her daughter's) on one of the toughest periods of parenting, and has assembled a top-notch group of writers that includes best-selling authors, college professors and admissions directors, and journalists. Their experiences with the difficult balancing act between control freak and resource answer questions like:

--how can a parent be less of a helicopter (hovering) and more of a booster rocket (uplifting)?
--what do you do when your child wants to put off college to become a rock star?
and
--how will you keep from wanting to kill each other?

Contributors include:
Jane Hamilton
David Latt
Neal Pollack
Joe Queenan
Anne Roark
Debra Shaver
Anna Quindlen
Ellen Waterston

For too long, white educators have relied on people of color to make change to a relentlessly racist school system. Racial equity will not come until white educators recognize their role in supporting racist policies and practices, and take responsibility for dismantling them.

Learning and Teaching While White is an accessible guide to help white educators, leaders, students, and parents develop an explicit, skills-based antiracist practice. Through their own experiences working with school communities, and the strategies and tools they have developed, Jenna Chandler-Ward and Elizabeth Denevi share how white educators can gain greater consciousness of their own white racial identity; analyze the role of whiteness in their school systems; rethink pedagogical approaches and curricular topics; address the role of white parents in the pursuit of racial literacy and equity; and much more. Their book will empower white educators to be part of creating a more equitable educational system for all students.

Everyone can name a teacher who had an impact on their life. Educators not only open our minds to new ideas, but they also help us recognize our potential and our passions. However, rarely do they get credit for the life-changing work they do, and often teachers have no idea how their work can influence a student all the way into adulthood.

In Lessons Learned and Cherished: The Teacher Who Changed My Life, award-winning ABC News journalist Deborah Roberts curates a collection of essays and musings from celebrity friends and colleagues alike that share how teachers changed them, imparted life lessons, and helped them get to where they are today.

The author has made a donation to DonorsChoose (DonorsChoose.org), a non-profit that encourages people to empower public school teachers by funding their classroom resources.

In Tom Boyce's extraordinary new book, he explores the dandelion child (hardy, resilient, healthy), able to survive and flourish under most circumstances, and the orchid child (sensitive, susceptible, fragile), who, given the right support, can thrive as much as, if not more than, other children.
Boyce writes of his pathfinding research as a developmental pediatrician working with troubled children in child-development research for almost four decades, and explores his major discovery that reveals how genetic make-up and environment shape behavior. He writes that certain variant genes can increase a person's susceptibility to depression, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and antisocial, sociopathic, or violent behaviors. But rather than seeing this risk gene as a liability, Boyce, through his daring research, has recast the way we think of human frailty, and has shown that while these bad genes can create problems, they can also, in the right setting and the right environment, result in producing children who not only do better than before but far exceed their peers. Orchid children, Boyce makes clear, are not failed dandelions; they are a different category of child, with special sensitivities and strengths, and need to be nurtured and taught in special ways. And in The Orchid and the Dandelion, Boyce shows us how to understand these children for their unique sensibilities, their considerable challenges, their remarkable gifts.

The Road Ahead for America's Colleges and Universities examines the threats posed to the current health of higher education by rising tuition and falling government support, as well as from new digital technologies rippling through the entire economy. Some predict disaster, pointing to high costs, exploding debt, and a digital tsunami that supposedly will combine to disrupt and sweep away many of the nation's higher education institutions, or change them beyond recognition. Archibald and Feldman provide a more nuanced view. They argue that the bundle of services that four-year colleges and universities provide will retain its value for the traditional age range of college students.

Less certain, Archibald and Feldman argue, is whether the system will continue to be a force for social and economic opportunity. The threats are most dire at schools that disproportionately serve America's most underprivileged students. At the same time, growing income inequality reduces the ability of many students and their families to pay for higher education. Archibald and Feldman suggest a range of policy options at the state and federal level that will help America's higher education system continue to fulfill its promise.

A groundbreaking and visionary call to action on educating and supporting girls of color, from the highly acclaimed author of Pushout

"Monique Morris is a personal shero of mine and a respected expert in this space."
--Ayanna Pressley, U.S. congresswoman and the first woman of color elected to Boston's city council

Wise Black women have known for centuries that the blues have been a platform for truth-telling, an underground musical railroad to survival, and an essential form of resistance, healing, and learning. In this "powerful call to action" (Rethinking Schools), leading advocate Monique W. Morris invokes the spirit of the blues to articulate a radically healing and empowering pedagogy for Black and Brown girls. Morris describes with candor and love what it looks like to meet the complex needs of girls on the margins.

Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues is a "vital, generous, and sensitively reasoned argument for how we might transform American schools to better educate Black and Brown girls" (San Francisco Chronicle). Morris brings together research and real life in this chorus of interviews, case studies, and the testimonies of remarkable people who work successfully with girls of color. The result is this radiant guide to moving away from punishment, trauma, and discrimination toward safety, justice, and genuine community in our schools.

Donald Yacovone shows us the clear and damning evidence of white supremacy's deep-seated roots in our nation's educational system through a fascinating, in-depth examination of America's wide assortment of texts, from primary readers to college textbooks, from popular histories to the most influential academic scholarship. Sifting through a wealth of materials from the colonial era to today, Yacovone reveals the systematic ways in which this ideology has infiltrated all aspects of American culture and how it has been at the heart of our collective national identity.

Yacovone lays out the arc of America's white supremacy from the country's inception and Revolutionary War years to its nineteenth-century flashpoint of civil war to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and today's Black Lives Matter. In a stunning reappraisal, the author argues that it is the North, not the South, that bears the greater responsibility for creating the dominant strain of race theory, which has been inculcated throughout the culture and in school textbooks that restricted and repressed African Americans and other minorities, even as Northerners blamed the South for its legacy of slavery, segregation, and racial injustice.

A major assessment of how we got to where we are today, of how white supremacy has suffused every area of American learning, from literature and science to religion, medicine, and law, and why this kind of thinking has so insidiously endured for more than three centuries.