Harvard Educational Publishing Group

This illuminating read bridges education history with contemporary efforts to create inclusive, equitable schools In Straighten Up, Girls and Boys, acclaimed historian and educator Jackie M. Blount exposes the hidden history of how American schools have carefully shaped and policed gender and sexuality—affecting every student and educator, past and present. With clarity and compassion, she invites readers not only to understand these forces, but to take action for positive change in their own school communities. Drawing on centuries of school design, hiring practices, and classroom curriculum, Blount uncovers how seemingly neutral decisions—from the layout of restrooms to textbooks and teacher roles—have been used to enforce binary gender norms and rigid expectations around sexuality. She explores the implications for both students and educators, highlighting moments of resistance and progress, but also the persistence of exclusion and harm. Through vivid historical storytelling and fresh analysis, Blount connects the dots between age-old anxieties and today's most pressing debates around LGBTQ issues in schools. This book empowers educators with the knowledge and historical context needed to question entrenched practices and build more supportive school cultures. Encouraging both critical reflection and practical action, Blount's work is a vital resource for anyone committed to fostering respect and opportunity for every member of the school community.

A bold and timely reexamination of how white students understand and engage with race on college campuses In Disrupting White Noise, Zak Foste and Lauren N. Irwin challenge the prevailing belief that white students come to college as "empty vessels," revealing how these students are already deeply shaped by their pre-college environments—bringing powerful attitudes and beliefs about race that can impede efforts toward inclusion. Drawing from years of interviews and research at a variety of institutions, Foste and Irwin demonstrate how campus environments often reinforce white racial comfort, reproduce segregation, and limit effective cross-racial engagement. Vivid narratives highlight how institutional policies, leadership programs, and daily campus life can inadvertently maintain barriers for students of color—while failing to address the real foundations of white students' understanding of race. The book goes beyond critique, offering actionable recommendations and concrete strategies that campus leaders can implement to disrupt harmful patterns and foster authentic learning. With clarity, urgency, and insight, this work equips higher education professionals to critically examine their own practices and to intentionally create more just, equitable environments. Essential reading for anyone who works with college students, this book provides the knowledge and tools to move beyond surface-level solutions towards genuine, lasting change.

Educators at the frontlines of the censorship wars share stories of survival and strategies for resistance American educators are contending with an unprecedented wave of restrictions on reading—indeed, a majority of today’s secondary English teachers and students have less of a say over what gets read in school than at any time since the 1960s. By amplifying the voices of teachers and librarians directly impacted by this broad effort to control young people’s reading experiences, Jonna Perrillo reveals in Uncensored the true forces behind the movement and how best to fight back. Current attacks on DEI initiatives, inclusive teaching practices, and marginalized groups have their roots in the culture wars, but they also build upon a framework of state standardization, scripted curricula, and other technocratic features of modern English Language Arts (ELA) instruction. Perrillo makes these connections clear as she shares firsthand accounts of how ELA teachers and librarians, already accustomed to externally designed and constrained instruction, are meeting the challenges of censorship in public and private K–12 schools while simultaneously devising successful strategies to preserve the right to read. With its inspiring stories from real teachers and librarians and practical recommendations, Uncensored offers more than an encounter with illiberal interference in the classroom. It explains how educators can foster strong reading cultures and establish vital community networks to ensure meaningful, deep reading experiences continue.

A clear, practical approach for K–12 educators to teach crucial life skills, concepts essential to healthy sexuality, and the capacity for meaningful relationships In Getting Real About Sex Ed, Shafia Zaloom offers educators, administrators, and caregiving adults concrete language and strategies for integrating sexuality education into daily practice, beginning with students in kindergarten and carrying through to high school graduation. Zaloom advocates Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE), a holistic framework for K–12 classrooms that addresses the cognitive, emotional, social, and physical aspects of sexuality. The book highlights how CSE scaffolds the sexual development of students as it gradually layers in age-appropriate information, skills, and positive values to practice and prepare for safe and fulfilling relationships, as well as how students can take responsibility for their own sexual health and well-being. Zaloom draws on the latest research and presents real-world scenarios from classrooms across the country that all educators face in developing students’ personal citizenship. With warmth, empathy, and insight, she guides teachers beyond the classroom to the in-between moments of educational spaces: the lunchroom, playground, hallways, and transition periods. She models how educators can deliver developmentally appropriate lessons across grades to inspire personal reflection, integrity, and the capacity to connect with others in community. In this vital, actionable work, Zaloom ultimately shows how a comprehensive approach to teaching sexuality education equips young people with life skills they need to cultivate mutual respect, care, dignity, and joy in sustained relationships, whether sexual or not, and contribute to a compassionate and just society.

An updated edition offering a framework of best practices for the K–12 educators of the 5.3 million US students who are multilingual language learners In this wholly updated second edition of Educating Multilingual Learners, the authors streamline their easy-to-use protocols for teachers of multilingual learners so that they apply to students who are learning through any new language in any PreK–12 classroom context. The authors present the new, teacher-friendly Teaching All Subjects, Language, and Literacy (TASLL) Framework that can be implemented flexibly to meet the needs of multilingual learners in the classroom. Drawing from the latest research and culturally relevant pedagogy, this new edition illuminates for teachers why and how to use the full linguistic repertoire of multilingual learners. It also encourages a collaborative approach to classroom instruction, recommending simple first steps to educator partnerships. Throughout the book, the authors return to four case study students of different ages, backgrounds, and levels of language proficiency to show the TASLL Framework in action. Pre-service and in-service teachers will find this an invaluable resource for classroom teaching of multilingual language learners.

A research-based guide uncovering what teachers say keeps them in their schools—and how leaders can sustain them The Reasons Teachers Stay offers a powerful new perspective on the urgent issue of teacher retention. While national headlines focus on why so many teachers leave, Douglas B. Larkin and Suzanne Poole Patzelt flip the question to ask: What makes teachers stay? Larkin and Patzelt’s findings can inform the practice of administrators, school leaders, and teachers in creating supportive work environments within K–12 school districts. Drawing on a six-year longitudinal study of US schools, districts, and communities with high rates of teacher retention, the work reveals that sustaining effective teachers in their jobs requires more than just a satisfactory working environment and incentives. Larkin and Patzelt find that teachers are retained when an interrelated set of conditions, including a manageable teaching load, a degree of autonomy, adequate compensation, and supportive relationships with colleagues, are in place to meet their needs. They present their findings using the teacher embeddedness framework to show how fit, interpersonal connections, and school-based/community assets matter more than previously understood. Engaging case studies and interviews with teachers and administrators throughout the book illustrate these concepts in action. The work ends with practical recommendations to enact key tenets of the framework in schools, such as establishing mentorship and induction programs; fostering teacher agency, autonomy, and protection; and providing strong support for teachers of color.

A rich, nuanced examination of the effects of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling restricting race-conscious college admissions policies—and food for thought for future transformation In Race, Class, and Affirmative Action, Julie J. Park offers deft analysis of the changes to college admissions and campus life since the US Supreme Court ruled to restrict race-conscious policies in two 2023 cases: Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard and SFFA v. the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Park offers clear explanations of the rulings, their historical context, and their implications for higher education policy. She highlights how the Supreme Court still allows campuses to consider the role of race in students’ experiences and that numerous tools to advance diversity in admissions remain. In this lively, timely work, Park points out the swift and stark post-ruling shifts in campus demographics and grapples with questions of how to push toward a more equitable admissions system. She investigates alternative initiatives, such as test-optional and test-free admissions, percent plans, and others, weighing their merits and drawbacks. She also examines inequality affecting college applications themselves and offers ideas for reform. Integrating up-to-the minute research on admissions, standardized testing, enrollment management, and the campus racial climate, Park recommends actions that can advance equity-oriented access to higher education despite the current restrictions on race-conscious admissions. Park ends with a call to campus leaders, policymakers, and practitioners to reimagine selective college admissions and attendance and offers a glimpse of what the future could hold.

In Fair and Justice-Oriented Assessment, Margaret Heritage and Caroline Wylie propose that the key to improving learning opportunities for all students lies in increasing educators' assessment literacy. Only by examining various assessment practices through a lens of fairness and equity can practitioners best judge their use and value and then develop strategies for implementation that truly elevate student learning in alignment with school and district standards and in ways that are fair and just. To build better assessment literacy, Heritage and Wylie seek to strengthen professional knowledge of ambitious teaching and use of both formative and summative classroom assessment practices. They clearly describe the knowledge and skills teachers need to better orient classroom assessment practices toward more positive learning experiences for all students. Critically, they urge educators to establish substantive learning goals, attend to the ways of eliciting evidence of student learning towards those goals, and reflect on the evidence to take action that intends to advance learning. This book features real-world examples of assessment practices across a range of contexts and content areas, grade levels, and student populations, and shows how assessment literacy competencies can be achieved at scale with support from school and district leaders. Fair and Justice-Oriented Assessment provides a research-based and yet practical perspective on classroom assessment and advocates for the use of equity-oriented curricular and ambitious teaching.

The popular volume on the power of character development in the classroom now features new chapters on intellectual risk-taking and open-mindedness, plus student, teacher, and school leader reflections on the value of the practice Character Compass, Second Edition returns to three, high-performing urban schools in Boston to reassess their distinct commitments to character education. Classical Academy prizes moral character, College Bound Middle School emphasizes performance character, and Civitas Prep prioritizes civic character. To this group, Scott Seider, Shelby Clark, and Madora Soutter add Bright Ideas Middle School, which champions intellectual character. They describe the ways in which these four school's distinctive character goals lead them to emphasize different programming and practices and to nurture different dimensions of their students' characters. Seider, Clark, and Soutter reconnect with the students that were interviewed more than a decade ago to ask how character education influenced their trajectories, and they invite the volume's original school leaders to share how their thinking has and has not changed. Their research reaffirms the foundational strength of character education in building a powerful school culture where students can thrive, and a new case-study on a school emphasizing intellectual character broadens the framework's reach. With its rare longitudinal and retrospective perspective, Character Compass, Second Edition provides K-2 educators and school leaders with powerful guidance for making character development central to their mission of supporting student success. Updates also help practitioners hone their chosen approach to best complement their own unique institutional commitments, community, and context.

An impactful approach to teaching assessment that boosts teaching practice while ensuring student success More effective learning goes hand-in-hand with a commitment to instructional excellence, but institutional approaches to instructor evaluation often fall short in assessing quality. In Transforming College Teaching Evaluation, Ann E. Austin, Noah D. Finkelstein, Andrea Follmer Greenhoot, Doug Ward, and Gabriela Cornejo Weaver propose a thorough reform of teaching evaluation that strengthens teaching and learning processes, enriches faculty practice, and enhances the institutional culture of teaching and learning for long-term success. This work understands that the academic department is the basic unit of change in a college and to truly transform teaching evaluation, department-level, college-level, and central institutional efforts must link together to drive reform. Leveraging data from the seven-year TEval study conducted at University of Colorado Boulder, University of Kansas, and University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the authors introduce a model for high-quality teaching evaluation that considers seven dimensions of educational practice, spanning the full array of teaching activities inside and out of the classroom. This framework incorporates a constellation of evaluative tools and data, such as faculty self-report, external reviews, and student surveys, and different approaches to evaluation that leaders can adapt to institutional needs. For administrators and educators seeking to advance modern teaching practices and fair teaching evaluation, this book provides a robust plan for reorienting the faculty reward system toward excellence.

A practical approach to strategic school-staffing reforms that benefit both educators and students In Unlocking the Potential of Team-Based Staffing, Brent W. Maddin, R. Lennon Audrain, Lisa Maresso Wyatt, and Kaycee Salmacia make a persuasive case for redesigning the education workforce to facilitate deeper and more personalized learning experiences in K&ndash 2 schools. They advocate disrupting the traditional one-teacher, one-classroom model in favor of team-based school-staffing models in which multiple educators are responsible for rosters of students. Maddin, Audrain, Wyatt, and Salmacia show that these innovative staffing models are associated with positive outcomes for both educators and students. Based on early evidence from the Next Education Workforce team, they demonstrate that strategic team-staffing models can increase educator job satisfaction, enable schools to best utilize human capital, and make complex, sought-after pedagogical approaches such as interest-based, differentiated learning more doable in resource-limited settings. The book offers school leaders concrete actions for the successful design and launch of team-based staffing. It presents clear guidance for navigating implementation challenges, including change management, instructional scheduling, and common infrastructural issues ranging from family communication to rethinking the physical spaces within schools to better support team-based instruction.

An engaging and evidence-based examination of how reading instruction has been misinterpreted and misapplied for decades and how to right the course to improve reading skills for all students In Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives, leading literacy expert Timothy Shanahan curates a lively tour of the history of reading instruction in the United States, arguing that the most popular reading instruction method is failing students and suppressing their literacy achievement. He breaks down the reasons why teachers and researchers alike have favored this accepted wisdom, known as instructional-level theory, in US schools over the past five decades- and presents a compelling case for a new way forward that will bolster students' reading skills. Today it's not uncommon to find students in a fourth-grade classroom reading books suitable for third-, second-, or even first-graders. Teachers suggest books to students at their deemed 'instructional levels,' but how these instructional levels are determined is suspect. With a comprehensive, critical analysis of instructional-level pedagogy, Shanahan exposes its shaky foundations and shows how faulty research findings have become so entrenched. He gathers an extensive body of research studies that overwhelmingly contradict the instructional-level theory and offers an evidence-based consideration of how educators must instead use grade-level reading to bring about maximum learning gains. This seminal book concludes with practical advice for implementing grade-level reading instruction, including detailed descriptions of the types of instruction and scaffolding needed to increase students' reading achievement, from teaching decoding and challenging texts, to scaffolding reading to motivation. Shanahan asserts that a better approach can ensure that all students have an opportunity to leave high school with reading abilities commensurate with their personal, social, civic, and economic goals.

An evidence-based approach to community college transformation featuring innovative practices that strengthen offerings and foster student successIn More Essential Than Ever, researchers Davis Jenkins, Hana Lahr, John Fink, Serena C. Klempin, and Maggie P. Fay center US community colleges as critical to upward mobility and workforce development in their communities, highlighting new practices these institutions are using to build high-quality programs and support students’ educational and career success. Drawing on a decade of research on whole-college guided pathways reforms at more than 100 community colleges nationally, they illustrate how colleges have implemented large-scale changes to help students better navigate the journey to completion. They argue, however, that to achieve better and more equitable outcomes—and to recruit and retain more students in a highly competitive market—colleges must not only remove barriers to completion but also strengthen pathways to student goals after graduation, thus making their investment of money, time, and effort worth it.The book provides compelling case studies of how colleges are achieving this along five frontiers: strengthening program career and baccalaureate transfer outcomes, teaching students to be versatile learners, strengthening recruitment and onboarding, ensuring students complete in as little time and at as low a cost as possible, and building on-ramps to high-opportunity postsecondary pathways from high school. The book also gives practical guidance for college leaders on managing and funding these innovations and for state policymakers on encouraging and supporting them.

A practical, accessible framework to help education leaders at all levels turn goals into effective actionIn Leading Strategically, Elizabeth A. City and Rachel E. Curtis introduce an actionable leadership framework that supports education leaders in developing and executing cohesive strategy and in taking action in their daily work in ways that make them more effective. Their approach helps leaders navigate challenges and dilemmas in ways that build ownership, collaboration, and capacity within their schools, school systems, and nonprofit educational organizations. City and Curtis center their framework on five essential elements of strategic leadership: discernment, or figuring out what is important to achieve the organization’s vision; cultivation of relationships by tending to interpersonal interactions and social networks with intentionality; deep knowledge of organizational context and history; identification of where power resides, what it looks like in action, and how to marshal it in service of shared purpose; and maintaining a lean and flexible mindset by thinking big, acting small, and learning fast. Throughout the work, reflective questions and tools invite readers to interrogate how each element can apply to their work, guide decision-making, and inform their leadership. Real-world mini case studies show these principles in practice, and a final chapter synthesizes the book into a set of questions leaders can use to guide them to lead strategically. Overall, this practical, hope-filled work encourages leaders—from teachers to superintendents and CEOs—to think expansively about what they can do on behalf of all students, their families, and their communities.