American Education

"There is not a single American awake to the world who is comfortable with the way things are." So begins Lawrence Lessig's sweeping indictment of contemporary American institutions and the corruption that besets them. We can all see it - from the selling of Congress to special interests to the corporate capture of the academy. Something is wrong. It's getting worse.

Wise Black women have known for centuries that the blues have been a platform for truth-telling, an underground musical railroad to survival, and an essential form of resistance, healing, and learning. In her highly anticipated follow-up to the widely acclaimed Pushout, now a core text for teachers and principals on the criminalization of Black girls in schools, leading advocate Monique W. Morris invokes the spirit of the blues to articulate a radically healing and empowering pedagogy for Black and Brown girls.

Raised in Miami and the daughter of Cuban refugees, Crucet examines the political and personal contours of American identity and the physical places where those contours find themselves smashed: be it a rodeo town in Nebraska, a university campus in upstate New York, or Disney World in Florida. Crucet illuminates how she came to see her exclusion from aspects of the theoretical American Dream, despite her family's attempts to fit in with white American culture - beginning with their ill-fated plan to name her after the winner of the Miss America pageant.

On the heels of the cult television hit Friday Night Lights, The New York Times best-selling author of The Junction Boys pens the story of Texas high school football integration, and the three men who put together a championship team.

The American Government CLEP Test Study Guide teaches you what you need to know to pass the CLEP test. This study guide is more than just a list of sample test questions. Our easy-to-understand study guide will teach you the information. We've condensed what you need to know into a manageable book - one that will leave you completely prepared to tackle the test.

The American Dream—the promise of opportunity, upward mobility, and a better life—is slipping through our fingers, and higher education is at the heart of its unraveling. For generations, colleges and universities were the great equalizers, the engines of opportunity that turned aspirations into achievements. But today, that promise feels broken. Skyrocketing tuition, crushing student debt, and academic programs out of step with the workforce have turned what should be a bridge to a better future into a daunting and uncertain gamble. This book dives deep into the urgent question: What ...

You're frustrated with not being understood. You're tired of shying away from conversations and presentations that keep you from making significant gains in your career and making connections in your social life. This guide is a culmination of all of the “mysterious secrets” that non-native English speakers search for on their journey to speaking with clear, fluent English pronunciation.

How do other countries create "smarter" kids? In a handful of nations, virtually all children are learning to make complex arguments and solve problems they've never seen before. They are learning to think, in other words, and to thrive in the modern economy.What is it like to be a child in the world's new education superpowers? In a global quest to find answers for our own children, author and Time magazine journalist Amanda Ripley follows three Americans embed­ded in these countries for one year.

As he prepares to recite the Declaration of Independence before his eighth grade social studies class in California, the thing Francisco has feared for 10 years finally happens. La migra, the immigration police, come to his classroom and pick him up for deportation to Mexico. Soon back in the United States with a "green card", Francisco struggles through adolescence, working two or three jobs a day and striving to excel at school.

There are several cultural changes that put our youth at risk. It is time to acknowledge these issues and deal with them in a positive and resolute manner.

What's the secret to speaking English better? It's mastery of those tricky idioms and phrases that are so common in English. And learning these idioms and phrases will not only help you speak better, it will help you understand Americans better. In this course, you'll join an American family as they go about their day-to-day lives. Along the way, you will master over 300 of today's most common English idioms and expressions!

Unlike the other arts, American literature has been a powerful, influential, and leading aspect of American culture. By turns sedate and mercurial and possessing a moral mind set of various social values, the American short story reveals in its pages the psyche of a growing, sprawling nation whose sense of destiny has always been larger than life. Here are seven masterpieces that will make you smile, make you frown, and leave you pondering the mystery that surrounds the soul of a great nation.

Are You the next President? If you have a strong desire, love and determination for service to the United States of America. You will be in the next one! The book will examine the characteristics, skills and qualities of a great president, including charisma, influence, and the ability to make strategic decisions that benefit the entire nation. Enjoy this book.

Why don’t our schools work? Eve L. Ewing tackles this question from a new angle: What if they’re actually doing what they were built to do? She argues that instead of being the great equalizer, America’s classrooms were designed to do the opposite: to maintain the nation’s inequalities. It’s a task at which they excel.

Virginia is one of the most important states in all of America, and has been so from the distant past up to the present day. Its history is rich with movements, conflicts, failures, discoveries, and victories. In "A Brief History of Virginia," John M. Wiley takes readers through a concise yet insightful excursion of Virginia's past. To help educators, discussion questions are included at the closing of each chapter, though the individual reader can find this added resource beneficial as well. Whether one is well versed in Virginia history or brand new, this book has plenty of historical ...

Orphaned ballet dancer Adelaide grew up in the Gilded Palace theatre, never knowing a real childhood or imagining a future beyond dancing. When her flaming red hair catches the eye of dashing business tycoon Crispin, a world of possibilities opens for her. Adelaide begins an education into what it means to be Papa’s little girl. But when Crispin and Adelaide’s budding relationship is threatened on two fronts, can he rescue her in time and make her his little one forever? Publisher’s Note: This steamy historical romance contains elements meant for mature readers only.

This audiocourse, titled "American Language for Beginners," is meticulously designed to introduce learners to the foundational aspects of American Sign Language (ASL), one of the most widely used languages among the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities in the United States. Spanning several comprehensive lessons, this course starts by teaching common signs and then reviews the ASL alphabet and numbers, where each is described in detail, ensuring that learners can grasp the hand shapes and movements associated with each character.

Splendiferous Speech explores the main sources of the American vernacular - the expanding western frontier, the bumptious world of politics, and the sensation-filled pages of popular 19th-century newspapers. It's a process that started with the earliest English colonists (first word adoption - the Algonquian raccoon) and is still going strong today. Author Rosemarie Ostler takes listeners along on the journey as Americans learn to declare linguistic independence and embrace their own brand of speech.

In Mules and Men, some of the rich cultural heritage of black America is revealed and preserved. In the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston returned to her home town of Eatonville, Florida, to collect and record the oral histories, songs, and sermons, many dating back to slavery times, that she remembered hearing as a child. These highly metaphorical folktales, "big old lies", and powerful songs helped her to recover her history, and preserve an important part of American culture.

Since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 Americans have viewed school integration as a central tenet of the Black civil rights movement. Yet, school integration was not the only - or even always the dominant - civil rights strategy. At times, African Americans also fought for separate, Black-controlled schools dedicated to racial uplift and community empowerment.