Ambitious programs of education reform have been introduced by many governments around the world. Reforming Education is an important study of large-scale education reform in five different settings: England, New Zealand, the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Manitoba and the US state of Minnesota. The book looks at a variety of reforms covering: school choice; charter schools; increased testing of students; stricter curriculum guidelines; and local school management.Drawin...

In the early 17th century, Russia went through a foreign invasion and the nations first civil war a time so horrible that it acquired its own name in Russian history: The Times of Troubles. Internal and external forces came together to create a storm of such magnitude that it threatened the very existence of the nation. The country lay in ruins and a foreign army occupied Moscow. For a while it seemed that Russia would never become an independent nation again, but the Russian people found ...

The Statue of Liberty, one of the world’s most iconic symbols, was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States. Standing proudly in New York Harbor, it became a welcoming sight to scores of immigrants.Although the statue commemorates the friendship between two countries, the gift almost didn’t occur!In this concise history, developed by the US National Park Service, you will learn how the colossal statue was conceived, financed, built, transported, and dedic...

Suggestions are constantly being made, both in the popular media and academic literature, about the kinds of changes schools should make. The research in this text shows that schools are primarily inward-looking organizations, and would benefit from better ways of understanding the changes surrounding them and the pressures on them. This text offers theoretical discussion of the ideas around the topic and a set of suggestions for thinking about them.

What can be done to improve the educational experiences of students who live in cities with increasingly high levels of diversity and inequality? Making a Difference in Urban Schools evaluates how school and community leaders have worked to change urban education in Canada for the better over the past fifty years.This analytic and comparative study traces the evolution of urban education in Toronto and Winnipeg from the 1960s onward. Jane Gaskell and Ben Levin identify imp...

For Walter Benjamin and Gilles Deleuze, who both authored seminal theoretical works on early cinema and photography, the history of modern media begins much earlier, in Baroque culture and science. Benjamin, Deleuze and the Baroque argues that their media theories were informed by their respective readings of the philosophy and mathematics of G.W. Leibniz, and the Baroque can thus be seen as the locus of modern media.By critically comparing Benjamin and Deleuze's interpreta...

Over 40 years ago the historic Kerner Commission Report declared that America was undergoing an urban crisis whose effects were disproportionately felt by underclass populations. In America's Urban Crisis and the Advent of Color-blind Politics, Curtis Ivery and Joshua Bassett explore the persistence of this crisis today, despite public beliefs that America has become a "post-racial" nation after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency.Ivery and Bassett combine their...

Over the past forty years, the health humanities, previously called the medical humanities, has emerged as one of the most exciting fields for interdisciplinary scholarship, advancing humanistic inquiry into bioethics, human rights, health care, and the uses of technology. It has also helped inspire medical practitioners to engage in deeper reflection about the human elements of their practice.In Health Humanities Reader, editors Therese Jones, Delese Wear, and Lester D. F...

In his famous theses on the philosophy of history, Benjamin writes: “We have been endowed with a weak messianic power to which the past has a claim.” This claim addresses us not just from the past but from what will have belonged to it only as a missed possibility and unrealized potential. For Benajmin, as for Celan and Derrida, what has never been actualized remains with us, not as a lingering echo but as a secretly insistent appeal. Because such appeals do not pass through normal channel...

Have you ever been in a situation where all of those internal warning signals went off but you went forward anyway? Or in a situation where you started to drive forward and then something told you to stop? This anthology is a collection of stories of similar situations that our authors experienced. Read on to find out about their own red flags.

Learn the other side of the Hanukkah story, A Chariot of Fire follows the Bene Israel community, as they flee Israel to find a new home in India.Two thousand years ago, a ship sailed east, alone on an endless sea. The people onboard were fleeing the same war that the Maccabees fought in the ancient land of Israel. They took with them their faith and their traditions, knowing they would sail for more than a year.When a great storm crushed their boat...

The World’s Finest Heroes, SUPERMAN and SHAZAM, team up for an amazing adventure! The galaxy’s greatest super heroes are unbeatable when they work together. But they may have met their match when Mister Mxyzptlk makes trouble in Metropolis. Will the daring duo be able to stop the imp’s Magic Monsters? Find out in this fast-paced chapter book perfect for any super hero fan.