Friday, December 20, 2013

Best Education Books of the Year

Looking for a last minute gift for an educator in your life? Let me suggest the following.

Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools, by Diane Ravitch. The one book that all people who care about public education must read now. You can find my review of the book here. 

Test and Punish: How the Texas Education Model Gave America Accountability without Equity,by John Kuhn. An indispensable history of how the test driven education reform movement in Texas became the model for the nation through No Child Left Behind. You can find my review of the book here.

Whose Knowledge Counts in Government Literacy Policies: Why Expertise Matters, by Kenneth S. Goodman. Robert C. Calfee, and Yetta M. Goodman. A collection of essays by the leading literacy experts in the world discussing the lack of respect for knowledge among education policy makers. I discuss some of the essays from the book here and here.

Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading, by Kylene Beers and Robert Probst. Informed and practical advice to teachers from two long-time experts in the literacy field. The authors take a look at close reading from an entirely different lens than the Common Core proponents. I discuss some elements of the book in this post.

Happy reading and happy holidays.

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