What would you do if you were a teacher that wanted to get fired? How would you respond to emails from parents? How would you deal with rude students? And what would you say during staff meetings if your goal was to be terminated? Now imagine a school with eight teachers competing to get fired and the hilarity that would ensue. Scott Miles is a snarky, peculiar and witty chemistry teacher in Plymouth, Michigan who teaches with seven close friends. One of his friends, Josh, proposes an idea called The No Teacher Left Behind Club where they all chip in to purchase lottery tickets for the group. During that meeting, the teachers jokingly agree to give a double share of any large winnings to the first of them that can be fired. But with a growing teaching shortage in Michigan, what will it actually take for someone to get fired?

From shootings, gangs, drugs, teen pregnancies, and even some administrators, a science teacher at an inner city high school describes the challenges she faced as she tried to reach her at-risk students. She believes giving teachers and students the help they need, not more tests, is they only way to truly begin to leave no child behind.

No Teachers Left Behind is a thought provoking yet humorous, realistic, fiction novella which describes the frustrations of a middle school staff. Told through a series of emails, poems, and interactions, this story will leave you wondering who is truly being left behind in public education. Kirkus Discoveries Reviews says, "Teachers finish last in this wickedly funny satire set at a public middle school in Georgia...the author is wonderful at creating situations and moving the plot forward via e-mail, school announcements and the occasional conversation, navigating easily between the hilarious and the tragic. Characterizations are spot-on..."

Since the early 1990s, the federal role in education-exemplified by the controversial No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)-has expanded dramatically. Yet states and localities have retained a central role in education policy, leading to a growing struggle for control over the direction of the nation's schools. In An Education in Politics, Jesse H. Rhodes explains the uneven development of federal involvement in education. While supporters of expanded federal involvement enjoyed some success in bringing new ideas to the federal policy agenda, Rhodes argues, they also encountered stiff resistance from proponents of local control. Built atop existing decentralized policies, new federal reforms raised difficult questions about which level of government bore ultimate responsibility for improving schools. Rhodes's argument focuses on the role played by civil rights activists, business leaders, and education experts in promoting the reforms that would be enacted with federal policies such as NCLB. It also underscores the constraints on federal involvement imposed by existing education policies, hostile interest groups, and, above all, the nation's federal system. Indeed, the federal system, which left specific policy formation and implementation to the states and localities, repeatedly frustrated efforts to effect changes: national reforms lost their force as policies passed through iterations at the state, county, and municipal levels. Ironically, state and local resistance only encouraged civil rights activists, business leaders, and their political allies to advocate even more stringent reforms that imposed heavier burdens on state and local governments. Through it all, the nation's education system made only incremental steps toward the goal of providing a quality education for every child.

When education activists in New York, Chicago, and other urban school districts in the 1980s began the small-schools movement, they envisioned a new kind of public school system that was fair and equitable and that encouraged new relationships between teachers and students. When that movement for school reform ran head-on into the neo-conservative takeover of the Department of Education and its No Child Left Behind strategy for school change, a new model of federal power bent on the erosion of public space and the privatization of public schooling emerged. Michael and Susan Klonsky, educators who were among the early leaders of the small-schools movement, tell the story of how a once-promising model of creating new small and charter schools has been used by the neocons to reproduce many of the old inequities. Small Schools is the engaging story of what happens when the small-schools movement meets the Ownership Society.

For the 20th anniversary of 9/11 comes an awe-inspiring account of the schoolchildren poisoned by the toxic air left in the wake of the Twin Towers’ destruction and the survivor who fought for health care for them in front of Congress and against the odds. On September 11, 2001, high school senior Lila Nordstrom watched from her classroom’s window as the Twin Towers, mere blocks away, fell. Weeks later, at the urging of local officials and assurance from the EPA, Lila and her three thousand classmates were returned to their school—even though the air was thick with toxic debris, dust, and smoke. In this remarkable, empowering memoir, Lila shares how the illnesses and deaths of her classmates related to the effects of the 9/11 cleanup spurred her into action. She created StuyHealth and became involved in the fight for the Victim Compensation Fund, working alongside first responders and heavyweights like Jon Stewart, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi, proving at every turn that her survivor community also deserves recognition and mental and physical health care and that her voice too deserves to be heard. This timely tale reveals how tragedy lays bare the American health care system and how corruption and misinformation continue to fail victims of tragedies. An honest, at times humorous guide to advocating for one’s self and one’s community and navigating the cutthroat world of legislation and health care, Lila's story begs us to consider how we as a nation treat our vulnerable communities and how all victims of all disasters deserve care, truth, and respect. Also included is a section on the meaning of advocacy work, what it means to be an active citizen, and how to support a cause you believe in.