Michael L. Printz Honor Book Robert F. Sibert Informational Honor Book Boston Globe/Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Book Arnold Adoff Poetry Award for Teens Six Starred Reviews—★Booklist ★BCCB ★The Horn Book ★Publishers Weekly ★School Library Connection ★Shelf Awareness A Booklist Best Book for Youth * A BCCB Blue Ribbon * A Horn Book Fanfare Book * A Shelf Awareness Best Children's Book * Recommended on NPR's "Morning Edition" by Kwame Alexander "This powerful story, told with the music of poetry and the blade of truth, will help your heart grow."–Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Speak and Shout "[A] testimony and a triumph."–Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down In her own voice, acclaimed author and poet Nikki Grimes explores the truth of a harrowing childhood in a compelling and moving memoir in verse. Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir that will resonate with young readers and adults alike, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.

How much of what you hear about schools can you trust? Can you believe the marketing hype about unsurpassed facilities, genius teachers and stellar academic achievement? Do you listen to neighbourhood gossip about your local school? Are government statistics the answer? School choice has become one of the most agonising issues of parenthood. Chris Bonnor and Jane Caro have no magic formula, and agree that complex factors come together to make a good school. But drawing on their own experiences and knowledge as school principal, parents and advocates they give parents the tools to do homework about schools themselves. They compare talk about schools – public, Catholic, private, selective, comprehensive – against the reality. They examine how good schools respond to the recurring crises in the lives of kids. They help navigate NAPLAN tests and the My School website. And they place their analysis squarely in the middle of the national discussion about education. Schools have to be good for students, for parents and for the nation. What Makes a Good School? will help you to cover all bases.

Richard Yates, who died in 1992, is today ranked by many readers, scholars, and critics alongside such titans of modern American fiction as Updike, Roth, Irving, Vonnegut, and Mailer. In this work, he offers a spare and autumnal novel about a New England prep school. At once a meditation on the twilight of youth and an examination of America's entry into World War II, A Good School tells the stories of William Grove, the quiet boy who becomes an editor of the school newspaper; Jack Draper, a crippled chemistry teacher; and Edith Stone, the schoolmaster's young daughter, who falls in love with most celebrated boy in the class of 1943.

There is universal interest in the 'good school'. Parents want to find one, teachers seek to teach in one and children deserve to attend one. This book makes the assumption that success is possible in every school. The authors have selected material from the original book, What Makes A Good School?, adding many new ideas from their extensive work on school improvement over the last 15 years, set in the context of the many changes and new agendas that are a feature of schools today.

A fascinating account of the range of teaching, assessing and feedback strategies used by individual 'expert' teachers. The book describes: *the most common lesson patterns, why and when they are used *how teaching strategies are varied according to subjects *how assessment and feedback information can encourage pupils to learn *the differences in teaching seven year olds and eleven year olds

America's leading expert in educational testing and measurement openly names the failures caused by today's testing policies and provides a blueprint for doing better. 6 x 9.

Test scores are the go-to metric of policy makers and anxious parents looking to place their children in the best schools. Yet standardized tests are a poor way to measure school performance. Using the diverse urban school district of Somerville MA as a case study, Jack Schneider’s team developed a new framework to assess educational effectiveness.