In "Alternative Schools: A Reference Handbook," educator Brenda Edgerton Conley surveys the emerging alternatives to our conventional educational system--a system that is not only costly, but ineffective for many children.

In a resource aimed at a broad audience--school administrators, politicians, and, most important, parents--Conley offers both a historical and a present-day perspective on alternative educational programs. What sets the alternative education movement apart, she argues, is its acknowledgment that we all learn differently. That knowledge has given rise to an explosion...

Crafted in ten skillfully written chapters, "Educational Reform" covers the history, politics, and processes of educational reform and addresses reforms in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Starting with a definition of educational reform and where its far-reaching results can lead, the work goes on to assess the role of the public in educational reform, the educational reform industry, and resistance to reform.

Of interest to school boards and administrators and useful in graduate and undergraduate courses in education, it is written in a conversational tone that brings the...

Even if math teachers had degrees in mathematics and more physics teachers majored or minored in physics, how would that address behavioral problems, emotionally disturbed children, apathetic parents, and decaying school buildings? How would requiring teachers to have degrees in their content areas attract better-qualified teachers? In what ways would such degrees make teachers better qualified and suited for classrooms?

In this volume, education professor Dave Pushkin, a former high school and community college chemistry and physics teacher, probes beneath the surface of easy answers...