Books on the topic 'Back-to-school programs'

When Children Refuse School: A Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Approach, Parent Workbook is designed to help parents work with a therapist to help their children who currently have difficulties attending school. This workbook defines school refusal behavior, describes how situations might be evaluated, and shows what parents and therapists can do to get children back into school with less distress. Parents should use this workbook with a qualified therapist who is concurrently using the therapist guide to treat the child’s school refusal behavior. Problematic school absenteeism is the primary focus of the treatment program covered in the workbook. Youths who complete high school are more likely to be successful at social, academic, occupational, and economic aspects of functioning than youths who do not. Youths with problematic school absenteeism are at risk for lower academic performance and achievement, lower reading and mathematics test scores, fewer literacy skills, internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, grade retention, involvement with the juvenile justice system, and dropout. The treatment program presented in this guide is designed for youths with primary and acute school refusal behavior. The program is based on a functional model of school refusal behavior that classifies youths on the basis of what reinforces their absenteeism.

As Laura looked back on the two years, she knew she had succeeded in educating her students not only for competence, but also for caring. How long this competence would last, Laura did not know. Many things contributed to her success. Laura’s class of approximately 20 students was mostly self-contained, and many students were in the class for two years, allowing her time to bond with them. Laura’s school was part of the Child Development Project which advocated and supported Laura’s teaching style and philosophy. Laura’s principal was supportive, and she had a trusted colleague who would help when some students presented serious problems. Would her students go on to lead successful lives? Many faced huge obstacles. Some might not make it. But she felt confident she had succeeded in helping each of them make real progress.

Technology doesn't flow smoothly; it's the big surprises that matter, and Yale computer expert David Gelernter sees one such giant leap right on the horizon. Today's small scale software programs are about to be joined by vast public software works that will revolutionize computing and transform society as a whole. One such vast program is the "Mirror world." Imagine looking at your computer screen and seeing reality--an image of your city, for instance, complete with moving traffic patterns, or a picture that sketches the state of an entire far-flung corporation at this second. These representations are called Mirror worlds, and according to Gelernter they will soon be available to everyone. Mirror worlds are high-tech voodoo dolls: by interacting with the images, you interact with reality. Indeed, Mirror worlds will revolutionize the use of computers, transforming them from (mere) handy tools to crystal balls which will allow us to see the world more vividly and see into it more deeply. Reality will be replaced gradually, piece-by-piece, by a software imitation; we will live inside the imitation; and the surprising thing is--this will be a great humanistic advance. we gain control over our world, plus a huge new measure of insight and vision. In this fascinating book--part speculation, part explanation--Gelernter takes us on a tour of the computer technology of the near future. Mirror worlds, he contends, will allow us to explore the world in unprecedented depth and detail without ever changing out of our pajamas. A hospital administrator might wander through an entire medical complex via a desktop computer. Any citizen might explore the performance of the local schools, chat electronically with teachers and other Mirror world visitors, plant software agents to report back on interesting topics; decide to run for the local school board, hire a campaign manager, and conduct the better part of the campaign itself--all by interacting with the Mirror world. Gelernter doesn't just speculate about how this amazing new software will be used--he shows us how it will be made, explaining carefully and in detail how to build a Mirror world using technology already available. we learn about "disembodied machines," "trellises," "ensembles," and other computer components which sound obscure, but which Gelernter explains using familiar metaphors and terms. (He tells us that a Mirror world is a microcosm just like a Japanese garden or a Gothic cathedral, and that a computer program is translated by the computer in the same way a symphony is translated by a violinist into music.) Mirror worlds offers a lucid and humanistic account of the coming software revolution, told by a computer scientist at the cutting edge of his field.

The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics provides an overview of the main methodological, analytical, and practical implications of the Austrian school of economics. This intellectual tradition in economics and political economy has a long history that dates back to Carl Menger in the late nineteenth century. The various contributions discussed in this book all reflect this "tension" of an orthodox argumentative structure (rational choice and invisible hand) to address heterodox problem situations (uncertainty, differential knowledge, ceaseless change).The Austrian economists, from the founders to today, seek to derive the invisible-hand theorem from the rational-choice postulate via institutional analysis in a persistent and consistent manner. The Handbook, which consists of nine parts, and 34 chapters, covers a variety of topics including: methodology, microeconomics (market process theory and spontaneous order), macroeconomics (capital theory and Austrian business cycle theory, and free banking), institutions and organizational theory, political economy, development and social change, and the 2008 financial crisis. The goals of the volume are twofold. First, to introduce readers to some of the main theories and insights of the Austrian school. Second, to demonstrate how Austrian economics provides a set of tools for making original and novel scholarly contributions to the broader economics discipline. By providing insight into the central Austrian theories, the volume will be valuable to those who are unfamiliar with Austrian economics. At the same time, it will be appealing to those already familiar with Austrian economics, given its emphasis on Austrian economics as a live and progressive research program in the social sciences.

Ted Kennedy and George W. Bush agreed on little, but united behind the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Passed in late 2001, it was hailed as a dramatic new departure in school reform. It would make the states set high standards, measure student progress, and hold failing schools accountable. A decade later, NCLB has been repudiated on both sides of the aisle. According to Jal Mehta, we should have seen it coming. Far from new, it was the same approach to school reform that Americans have tried before. In The Allure of Order, Mehta recounts a century of attempts at revitalizing public education, and puts forward a truly new agenda to reach this elusive goal. Not once, not twice, but three separate times-in the Progressive Era, the 1960s and '70s, and NCLB-reformers have hit upon the same idea for remaking schools. Over and over again, outsiders have been fascinated by the promise of scientific management and have attempted to apply principles of rational administration from above. Each of these movements started with high hopes and ambitious promises, but each gradually discovered that schooling is not easy to "order" from afar: policymakers are too far from schools to know what they need; teachers are resistant to top-down mandates; and the practice of good teaching is too complex for simple external standardization. The larger problem, Mehta argues, is that reformers have it backwards: they are trying to do on the back-end, through external accountability, what they should have done on the front-end: build a strong, skilled and expert profession. Our current pattern is to draw less than our most talented people into teaching, equip them with little relevant knowledge, train them minimally, put them in a weak welfare state, and then hold them accountable when they predictably do not achieve what we seek. What we want, Mehta argues, is the opposite approach which characterizes top-performing educational nations: attract strong candidates into teaching, develop relevant and usable knowledge, train teachers extensively in that knowledge, and support these efforts through a strong welfare state. The Allure of Order boldly challenges conventional wisdom with a sweeping, empirically rich account of the last century of education reform, and offers a new path forward for the century to come.