Deborah Meier has for twenty years led one of the most remarkable public schools in the country, Central Park East (CPE) in East Harlem, where 90 percent of the students graduate high school and 90 percent of those go on to college, this in a city where the average graduation rate is 50 percent. CPE is a school where inner-city kids and teachers experience and act on the "power of their ideas," and it has been called the best school in New York City. As founder and advocate, Meier has won national acclaim as a leading voice and visionary writer in education. In this long-awaited book, Meier issues an eloquent, timely defense of public education. Taking on pessimists and privatizers, she tells us all why public education is vital to the future of our democracy and our kids. Equally important, she shows why good education is possible for all our children, starting with the remarkable success story of Central Park East. Drawing on her life as a teacher and principal, Meier argues for radical innovation: for breaking up huge schools into small schools; for choice within the public school system; for respect; for teaching that connects learning to real-world activities; for a new ideal of being "well-educated."
Setting / LocationNew York City
Story EraContemporary / Future
Protagonist / CoreThe power of their ideas Lead Character
The New York Times bestseller that introduced the business world to a future that’s already here—now in a new edition with a new chapter about Long Tail Marketing and a new epilogue.Winner of the Gerald Loeb Award for Best Business Book of the YearIn the most important business book since The Tipping Point, Chris Anderson shows how the future of commerce and culture isn’t in hits, the high-volume head of a traditional demand curve, but in what used to be regarded as misses—the endlessly long tail of that same curve.
Since the early 1980s the rapidly increasing cost of college, together with what many see as inadequate attention to teaching, has elicited a barrage of protest. Buying the Best looks at the realities behind these criticisms - at the economic factors that are in fact driving the institutions that have been described as machines without brakes. In designing his study, Charles Clotfelter examines the escalation in spending in the arts and sciences at four elite institutions: Harvard, Duke, Chicago, and Carleton. He argues that the rise in costs has less to do with increasing faculty salaries or lowered productivity than with a broad-based effort to improve quality, provide new services to students, pay for large investments in new facilities and equipment (including computers), and insure access for low-income students through increasingly expensive financial aid. In Clotfelter's view spiraling costs arise from the institutions' lofty ambitions and are made possible by steadily intensifying demand for places in the country's elite colleges and universities. Only if this demand slackens will universities be pressured to make cuts or pursue efficiencies. Buying the Best is the first study to make use of the internal historical records of specific institutions, as opposed to the frequently unreliable aggregate records made available by the federal government for the use of survey researchers. As such, it has the virtue of allowing Clotfelter to draw much more realistic comparative conclusions than have hitherto been reported. While acknowledging the obvious drawbacks of the small sample, Clotfelter notes that the institutions studied are significant for the disproportionate influence they, and comparable elite institutions, exercise in research and in the training of future leaders.
"A grand, brilliantly written work of American history. We think we know the story of American religion: the Puritans were cold, austere, and pious, and Christianity continued pure and uncorrupted until the industrial revolution got in the way. In The Money Cult, Chris Lehmann argues that we have it backwards: capitalism has always been entangled with religion, and so today's megapastors aren't an aberration--they're as American as Benjamin Franklin. The long-awaited first book by a hugely admired journalist, The Money Cult is a sweeping and accessible history that traces American Christianity from John Winthrop to the rise of the Mormon Church to the triumph of Joel Osteen"--
Finally, an indispensable source for anyone - from mid-level managers through top-level executives - who needs to implement business decisions on time and within budget. In today's ever-fluctuating world, it's not enough to recognize that you and the way you do business need to change. You must know how to make changes quickly, effectively, economically, and with as little political fallout as possible, or you are bound to fail. Everywhere today you hear the concern of. Those trying to adapt to the rapid flux created by an uncertain economy, ever-changing market demands, and the threat of international competition. Businesses worry that they can't keep up, and every day another corporation falls prey to the myth that the status quo still works. Daryl Conner, president and founder of the consulting firm Organizational Development Resources, Inc. (ODR), is the world's number one expert on change management. ODR, Inc., has served as. "Change doctor" for clients such as Georgia Pacific, Honeywell, IBM, Levi Strauss, Mobil Oil, AT & T, Chase Manhattan, JCPenney, Pepsi-Cola Company, and numerous organizations and governments in Europe, Latin America, Asia, Australia, South Africa, and the former Soviet Union. Conner has taken his twenty years of change management experience and written a ground-breaking guide on resilient, successful change. His system focuses on how to change rather than what to change. Business people at all levels now face the major challenge of initiating company-wide reorganization plans, responding quickly to competition, establishing new products and markets, and adapting themselves smoothly to fluctuations in the economy. Conner's uniquely successful methods will teach today's managers to negotiate these transitions by teaching them what distinguishes resilient people from those who suffer future shock; why major change is difficult to. Assimilate; the key elements and the flow of events involved in human transition; what roles are central to change in organizational settings; how and why resistance forms; how people become committed to change; why organizational culture is so important to a change's success, and why powerful teamwork is at the heart of achieving change objectives. In this roller-coaster business climate, the adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" doesn't work anymore. Pepsi-Cola and. The rest of Daryl Conner's clients will attest to that. Don't be daunted - start Managing at the Speed of Change and meet today's challenges with confidence.
The power of their ideas by Deborah Meier | Literally Just Books
