Changing the Odds for Children at Risk PDF Download

Author: Susan B. Neuman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313362238
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Schools, today, are in the midst of the most major, costly educational reform movement in their history as they grapple with the federal mandates to leave no children behind, says author Susan B. Neuman, former Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education under President George W. Bush. Although some efforts for investing resources will be substantially more productive than others, there is little evidence that, despite many heroic attempts to beat the odds, any of these efforts will close more than a fraction of the differences in achievement for poor minority children and their middleclass peers. As Neuman explains in this insightful, revealing book, schools will fail, not due to the soft bigotry of low expectations, but because there are multitudes of children growing up in circumstances that make them highly vulnerable. Children who come to school from dramatically unequal circumstances leave school with similarly unequal skills and abilities. In these pages, however, Neuman shows how the odds can be changed, how we can break the cycle of poverty and disadvantage for children at risk After laying the critical groundwork for the need for change—excessive waste with little effect—this book provides a vivid portrait of changing the odds for high-poverty children. Describing how previous reforms have missed the mark, it offers a framework based on seven essential principles for implementing more effective programs and policies. Building on successes while being fiscally responsible is a message that has been shown to have wide bipartisan appeal, embraced by both liberals and conservatives. Following Neuman's essential principles, chapters describe programs for changing the odds for children, when the cognitive gaps are beginning to form, in these earliest years of their lives. In a highly readable style, Neuman highlights programs that are making a difference in children's lives across the country, weaving together narratives that tell a compelling story of hope and promise for our most disadvantaged children.

Author: Susan B. Neuman
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807771945
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
This is a compelling, eye-opening portrait of two communities in Philadelphia with drastically different economic resources. Over the course of their10-year investigation, the authors of this important new work came to understand that this disparity between affluence and poverty has created a knowledge gap--far more important than mere achievement scores--with serious implications for students' economic prosperity and social mobility. At the heart of this knowledge gap is the limited ability of students from poor communities to develop information capital. This moving book takes you into the communities in question to meet the students and their families, and by doing so provides powerful insights into the role that literacy can play in giving low-income students a fighting chance. Important reading for a wide audience of educators, policymakers, school reformers, and community activists, Giving Our Children a Fighting Chance: Documents how inequalities begin early and are reinforced by geographic concentration. Compares community libraries to see how print is used in each neighborhood and how children develop as young readers. Looks at patterns that create radical differences in experiences and attitudes toward learning prior to entering school. Explores the function of technology as a tool that exacerbates the divide between affluent students and those with limited access to information. Provides a comprehensive analysis of community literacy, documenting the transformation of media habits from books to computers. Concludes with a look inside schools to answer questions about what schools can do to overcome this complex, unequal playing field. Susan B. Neuman is a professor of Educational Studies at the University of Michigan, and has served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education.Her books include Changing the Odds for Children at Risk. Donna C. Celano is assistant professor of Communication at La Salle University in Philadelphia. “Giving Our Children a Fighting Chance depicts a stark reality: the enormous and growing divide in literacy and reading skill development between children growing up in poverty and children from the middle and upper classes—and the social and economic ramifications. This book should be required reading, not just for those in the education and policy fields, but for anyone who cares about the lives of children and the health of our society.” —Kyle Zimmer, President and CEO, First Book “‘By walking the streets, riding the buses, and taking the subways,’ Celano and Neuman give us a groundbreaking and sobering look at print and education technology resources in two neighborhoods, one wealthy and one poor. The result is a must-read eye-opener for anyone who cares about equal opportunity. The stuff of learning is essential but insufficient. Only with close teacher, parent, and student-to-student coaching can better print and technology resources make a difference.” —Eugenia Kemble, Executive Director, Albert Shanker Institute “The authors of this text make you CARE about these communities and children. They provide insights about how we must focus on literacy in order to make a real difference in the lives of students. This is one of the most comprehensive analyses to date of community literacy, documenting the transformation of media habits from books to computers.” —Linda B. Gambrell, Distinguished Professor of Education, Clemson University

Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264914110
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
This report analyses the individual and environmental factors that contribute to child vulnerability. It calls on OECD countries to develop and implement cross-cutting well-being strategies that focus on empowering vulnerable families; strengthening children’s emotional and social skills; strengthening child protection; improving children’s health and educational outcomes; and reducing child poverty and material deprivation.

Author: Emmy E. Werner
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501711997
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Overcoming the Odds looks closely at the lives of an ethnically diverse group of 505 men and women who were born in 1955 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai and who have been monitored from the prenatal period through early adulthood by psychologists, pediatricians, public health professionals, and social workers. Werner and Smith trace the impact of a variety of biological and psycho-social risk factors and stressful events on the development of these individuals, most of whose parents did not graduate from high school and worked as semiskilled or unskilled laborers. Incorporating vivid case study accounts with statistical analysis, the authors focus on both the vulnerability and the resilience of those who overcame great odds to grow into competent and caring adults. They trace the recovery process through which most of the troubled adolescents in the cohort—those with histories of delinquency, teenage pregnancy, and mental health problems—emerged with improved prospects in their twenties and early thirties. Identifying both the self-righting tendencies that enable high risk children later to adapt successfully to work, marriage, and parenthood, and the conditions under which professional and volunteer care is most beneficial, Werner and Smith offer concrete suggestions for effective intervention policies.

Author: Marge Scherer
Publisher: ASCD
ISBN: 1416609776
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
This e-book, a collection of articles from Educational Leadership and other ASCD publications explores what it means to "support the whole child." In these articles, authors ponder the various meanings of support in the classroom, school, and community. This third in a four-book series exploring whole child education ends by emphasizing another maxim of good teaching: Hold high expectations for your students. Our authors agree: With the right supports, students are capable of doing more than even they think they can. Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.

Author: Karen Firestone
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351861867
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
In Even the Odds, Karen Firestone explains how risk assessment plays a prominent role in all aspects of life. We may all define risk, and our tolerance for it, somewhat differently, but we might all agree it plays a pivotal role in guiding us toward an optimal outcome. As a long-time investment advisor, Firestone has grown accustomed to interpreting risk on a daily basis. She has developed four core tenets of risk-taking we can all apply to anticipating, evaluating, and responding to the risks we face in our business, investing, and personal lives. These tenets are right-sizing; right-timing; relying on skill, knowledge, and experience; and staying skeptical about numbers, promises, and forecasts. Firestone's approach is both practical and accessible to individuals who are making important decisions, such as embarking on new career or life changes, starting or running an enterprise, making a sizable investment, or deciding how to balance across a full portfolio of assets. The book is rich with anecdotes and examples of how many prominent leaders in their fields encountered and dealt with risk along the way. Firestone also shares her own successes and failures, in particular when she decided to risk it all--a fabulous career managing billions of dollars at a premium investment company, her reputation, and the security at home that comes with a strong and stable job--to go out on her own. Even the Odds helps us understand the broader implications of risk--and how it guides our decision-making--so that we can improve outcomes across multiple facets of our lives, from our businesses and investments, to the personal choices we make.

Author: Bryan Goodwin
Publisher: ASCD
ISBN: 1416614028
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
We already know what works in schools; we just need to focus on getting it right. This is the premise of Simply Better: Doing What Matters Most to Change the Odds for Student Success, which offers a practical, research-based framework for improving student achievement. According to author Bryan Goodwin, decades of research have shown time and again that focusing on the following five essential practices can vastly increase students' chances of doing well in school: * Guaranteeing that instruction is challenging, engaging, and intentional * Ensuring curricular pathways to success * Providing whole-child student supports * Creating high-performance school cultures * Developing data-driven, high-reliability district systems Whether at the district-, school-, or classroom-level, educators don't need to reinvent the wheel or pursue the latest trends to ensure that students succeed. This powerful book reveals what research clearly shows works best in schools, and provides a valuable blueprint for turning that knowledge into visible results.

Author: David Tobis
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195099885
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
In the early 1990s 50,000 children were in New York City's foster care system. By 2011 there were fewer than 15,000. In his book, David Tobis shows how such radical change was driven largely by a movement of mothers whose children had been placed into foster care, who fought to become advocates and stakeholders in a system that had previously viewed them as part of the problem. This book serves as an example of how advocates can change a system, as told from the perspective of key figures, change agents, and the parent advocates themselves.

Author: Stefanie DeLuca
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610448588
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Recent research on inequality and poverty has shown that those born into low-income families, especially African Americans, still have difficulty entering the middle class, in part because of the disadvantages they experience living in more dangerous neighborhoods, going to inferior public schools, and persistent racial inequality. Coming of Age in the Other America shows that despite overwhelming odds, some disadvantaged urban youth do achieve upward mobility. Drawing from ten years of fieldwork with parents and children who resided in Baltimore public housing, sociologists Stefanie DeLuca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, and Kathryn Edin highlight the remarkable resiliency of some of the youth who hailed from the nation’s poorest neighborhoods and show how the right public policies might help break the cycle of disadvantage. Coming of Age in the Other America illuminates the profound effects of neighborhoods on impoverished families. The authors conducted in-depth interviews and fieldwork with 150 young adults, and found that those who had been able to move to better neighborhoods—either as part of the Moving to Opportunity program or by other means—achieved much higher rates of high school completion and college enrollment than their parents. About half the youth surveyed reported being motivated by an “identity project”—or a strong passion such as music, art, or a dream job—to finish school and build a career. Yet the authors also found troubling evidence that some of the most promising young adults often fell short of their goals and remained mired in poverty. Factors such as neighborhood violence and family trauma put these youth on expedited paths to adulthood, forcing them to shorten or end their schooling and find jobs much earlier than their middle-class counterparts. Weak labor markets and subpar postsecondary educational institutions, including exploitative for-profit trade schools and under-funded community colleges, saddle some young adults with debt and trap them in low-wage jobs. A third of the youth surveyed—particularly those who had not developed identity projects—were neither employed nor in school. To address these barriers to success, the authors recommend initiatives that help transform poor neighborhoods and provide institutional support for the identity projects that motivate youth to stay in school. They propose increased regulation of for-profit schools and increased college resources for low-income high school students. Coming of Age in the Other America presents a sensitive, nuanced account of how a generation of ambitious but underprivileged young Baltimoreans has struggled to succeed. It both challenges long-held myths about inner-city youth and shows how the process of “social reproduction”—where children end up stuck in the same place as their parents—is far from inevitable.

Author: Maure Ann Metzger
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1475815778
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Why are our educational institutions and practices such a poor fit for so many students? A Prison Called School addresses the complex issues that place many students at a disadvantage as they try to survive yet another hurdle in life—school. Although some students are able to navigate and succeed in the current system, other students struggle to survive a system that is unable to meet their needs. For those students, school can feel like a twelve-year prison sentence. Students who cannot fit the outdated, one-size-fits-all model, are further penalized by a system that blames the struggling student rather than holding the institution accountable. For students to thrive in school, the system, not the students, must change in deep and substantial ways. A Prison Called School is a powerful catalyst for creating the empowering, engaging, and effective learning environments that all students need to succeed in school and life.