The nation is abuzz with consideration of prekindergarten programs for all children. To better understand the issues involved, funding and staffing considerations as well as policy option, this book is a must read. In this timely book, Matia Finn-Stevenson and Edward Zigler argue that the federal government alone cannot address the need for child care and family support services that, like education, should be addressed locally. The authors use their Schools of the 21st Century (21C) program as an example of how schools can provide child care, outreach services, home visitations, and health...

All school reformers are trying for better schooling; but all are not marching to the same drum. Four goals-- Excellence, Fairness, Inclusion and Harmony-- are emphasized by different groups. Are the four goals competing ideas of the good, so that national political debates must result in prioritizing, in winners and losers? Tharp, Estrada, Dalton, and Yamauchi demonstrate that the four goals can all be achieved, simultaneously and maximally, by classrooms of a new vision.All school reform has one final common pathway -- instructional activity. Whatever the specific reform, from policy or...

The identification of poor readers as learning disabled can be the first of many steps toward consigning students to a lifetime of reading failure. The very label that is meant to help children often becomes a burden that works against effective learning throughout their schooling.In this book, the authors identify the dangers of labeling children as reading or learning disabled, contending that a reading disability is not a unitary phenomenon. In order to diagnose and help children, educators and parents need to understand the multiple sources of reading difficulty before they can choose...

Isn't acceleration just for gifted kids? This is a common assumption when we think about who benefits from efforts to accelerate student learning. For generations, students identified as gifted have been separated from other students and provided enriched learning opportunities many adults believe would be wasted on other students. More recently, in response to failed efforts to remediate low-achieving students, the term has been extended to efforts to reverse the negative effects of grade retention for many low-achieving students. The most promising application of the term involves efforts...