New legislation will transform American public education. Basic to the No Child Left Behind Act and the Put Reading First program is a new and... substantial federal intrusion into local curriculum control and teacher autonomy. This intrusion is masked in the legislative mandate for "evidence-based", or "scientific", reading instruction. Beyond the distortions of the findings of the National Reading Panel Report that undergird the new federal initiatives, there are other federal mandates, past and current, that have also impeded improving reading instruction - and worse, the public education system - through privatization, teacher disempowerment, and a systemic business model. In this timely and important book, nationally-recognized reading researcher Richard Allington tracks and questions the 30-year campaign that has focused on testing, accountability, and federalization of education. He and other educators, including Jim Cunningham, Michael Pressley, Elaine Garan, and Patrick Shannon, have contributed articles that provide an overview of past and recent federal education policies, including the NRP Report and associated legislation and policy making, with analyses of the premises of the new national reading plan. By showing how these premises are manufactured - that is, not reliably supported by the research - they explain why this plan is an unwarranted federal encroachment into local educational decision making.

Think DIARY OF A WORM meets OLIVIA....Introducing Prunella--an irresistibly irrepressible, independent, bug-loving little girl, sure to create quite a... buzz!Prunella is aflutter to share her big bug surprise at show-and-tell. But suddenly, the classroom is abuzz with an even bigger bug surprise! A swarm of bees has invaded! With her teacher and her classmates frantic, can Prunella's buggy know-how save the day? Luckily, Prunella has an idea. And like a true queen, she leads the bees safely to a new hive. Her teacher is impressed! Her classmates cheer! But what does Prunella do? She shares more bug facts, of course, and her audience couldn't beeeee more delighted.

Serving as an ideal introduction to C++ programming, this updated edition balances ease of learning the latest thinking on cognitive processes, current... theoretical approaches, and innovative research techniquesShares additional guidance in the form of how-tos and walkthroughs throughout the chapters

Long dismissed as a relic of a bygone era, coal is back -- with a vengence. Coal is one of the nation's biggest and most influential industries -- Big... Coal provides more than half the electricity consumed by Americans today -- and its dominance is growing, driven by rising oil prices and calls for energy independence. Is coal the solution to America's energy problems?On close examination, the glowing promise of coal quickly turns to ash. Coal mining remains a deadly and environmentally destructive industry. Nearly forty percent of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year comes from coal-fired power plants. In the last two decades, air pollution from coal plants has killed more than half a million Americans. In this eye-opening call to action, Goodell explains the costs and consequences of America's addiction to coal and discusses how we can kick the habit.

In his prime, Edward Bloom was an extraordinary man. He could outrun anybody. He never missed a day of school. He saved lives and tamed giants. Animals... loved him, people loved him, women loved him. He knew more jokes than any man alive. At least that’s what he told his son, William. But now Edward Bloom is dying, and William wants desperately to know the truth about his elusive father —this indefatigable teller of tall tales—before it’s too late. So, using the few facts he knows, William re-creates Edward’s life in a series of legends and myths—hilarious and wrenching, tender and outrageous—through which he begins to understand his father’s great feats, and his great failings.

In his prime, Edward Bloom was an extraordinary man. Or at least that's what he told his son. Faced with the prospect of his father's death, William... Bloom sets about to discover who the man really is. Daniel Wallace's magical first novel, Big Fish, is told as a series of legends and myths inspired by the few facts that William knows. Through these tall tales-hilarious and wrenching, tender and outrageous-William begins to understand his elusive father's great feats and great failings.

REBECCA TRAISTER, whose coverage of the 2008 presidential election for Salon confirmed her to be a gifted cultural observer, offers a startling... appraisal of what the campaign meant for all of us. Though the election didn’t give us our first woman president or vice president, the exhilarating campaign was nonetheless transformative for American women and for the nation. In Big Girls Don’t Cry, her electrifying, incisive and highly entertaining first book, Traister tells a terrific story and makes sense of a moment in American history that changed the country’s narrative in ways that no one anticipated.It was all as unpredictable as it was riveting: Hillary Clinton’s improbable rise, her fall and her insistence (to the consternation of her party and the media) on pushing forward straight through to her remarkable phoenix flight from the race; Sarah Palin’s attempt not only to fill the void left by Clinton, but to alter the very definition of feminism and claim some version of it for conservatives; liberal rapture over Barack Obama and the historic election of our first African-American president; the media microscope trained on Michelle Obama, harsher even than the one Hillary had endured fifteen years earlier. Meanwhile, media women like Katie Couric and Rachel Maddow altered the course of the election, and comedians like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler helped make feminism funny. What did all this mean to the millions of people who were glued to their TV sets, and for the country, its history and its future? As Traister sees it, the 2008 election was good for women. The campaign for the presidency reopened some of the most fraught American conversations—about gender, race and generational difference, about sexism on the left and feminism on the right—difficult discussions that had been left unfinished but that are crucial to further perfecting our union. The election was also catalytic, shaping the perspectives of American women and men from different generations and backgrounds, altering the way that all of us will approach questions of women and power far into the future. When Clinton cried, when Palin reached for her newborn at the end of a vice presidential debate, when Couric asked a series of campaign-ending questions, the whole country was watching women’s history—American history—being made. Throughout, Traister weaves in her own experience as a thirtysomething feminist sorting through all the events and media coverage—vacillating between Clinton and Obama and forced to face tough questions about her own feminism, the women’s movement, race and the different generational perspectives of women working toward political parity some ninety years after their sex was first enfranchised. It was a time of enormous change, and there is no better guide through that explosive, infuriating, heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious year than Rebecca Traister. Big Girls Don’t Cry offers an enduring portrait of dramatic cultural and political shifts brought about by this most historic of American contests.

Big Girls Don’t Cry offers a startling appraisal of the 2008 presidential campaign and brilliantly demonstrates that it was transformative for... American women and for the nation. The campaign for the presidency reopened some of the most fraught American conversations—about gender, race and generational difference, about sexism on the left and feminism on the right—difficult discussions that had been left unfinished but that are crucial to further perfecting our union. Throughout the book, Traister weaves in her own experience as a thirtysomething feminist sorting through all the events and media coverage—vacillating between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and forced to face tough questions about her own feminism, the women’s movement, race and the different generational perspectives of women working toward political parity. Electrifying, incisive and highly entertaining, Big Girls Don’t Cry offers an enduring portrait of dramatic cultural and political shifts brought about by this most historic of American contests.

"Big Happiness: The Life and Death of a Modern Hawaiian Warrior, is an absorbing look at the life of professional sumo wrestler Percy Kipapa, as it... intertwines the relationship between rampant post-statehood development and Hawaii's deeply imbedded drug problem, and Kipapa's hometown in rural Windward Oahu. After a successful career in Japan as a sumo wrestler, reaching the sekitori rank, Kipapa (known professionally as Daiki, or Big Happiness) returned to a Hawaii that had little to offer him in the way of economic opportunity and he drifted into ice addiction. Seven years after his return, Kipapa was found murdered in the pickup truck of a friend a drug dealer out on bail who later confessed to the killing.Big Happiness is extremely important to our community. Mark Panek s biography of Percy Kipapa speaks to the consequences of the destruction of Hawai i s rural neighborhoods, unchecked development, the ice epidemic, the failures of government, sumo, intricate family and neighbor relationships, and more. What is most impressive is Panek's ability to weave all of these complex topics together in a seamless narrative that connects all the dots. Part mystery, part investigative journalism, part poignant Island portrait, this work contains an emotional element that binds the reader to the subjects in a dignified yet touching way, showing compassion and even affection for people while revealing their flaws and shortcomings. This book will resonate with an Island audience and with anyone interested in Hawaii." --Victoria Kneubuhl, Hawaii writer and playwrightThis book tells of personal triumphs and failures, and also the triumphs and failures of families, communities, organizations, agencies, governments, and churches dealing with the multiple consequences of progress in contemporary Hawaii. There have been heroes and villains at all levels frequently, the same individuals and agencies are both at the same time. The story of Percy Kipapa is especially poignant because professional sumo gave him a unique opportunity to transcend Hawaii's culture of colonialism, racism, poverty, and drug addiction, which in the end all brought him down anyway. Mark Panek has done a masterful job of weaving these strands together." --Reverend Bob Nakata, former Hawaii state senator "Spanning the history of Waikane and the brutality of Japan's national sport, Big Happiness is a remarkably ambitious piece that links one man's murder to the ice epidemic, land development, and political corruption in Hawaii. Mark Panek's meticulously researched, skillfully written, heartbreaking story, filled with voices that ring true, is an indictment of an entire system that crushed a gentle giant. While other Hawaii writers dwell in take me back to da kine nostalgia, Panek tells it like it really is." -- Chris McKinney, author of The Tattoo and Mililani Mauka

Big History and the Future of Humanity presents an original theoretical approach that makes “big history” – the placing of the human past within... the history of life, the Earth, and the Universe -- accessible to general readers while revealing insights into what the future may hold for humanity.Provides an accessible and original overview of the entire sweep of history that places human history within the history of life, the Earth, and the Universe Features an original theory of “big history” which explains all of history and opens up an entirely new interdisciplinary research agenda Offers new insights into the future of humanity by better understanding the pastPresents a new approach to complexity studies, which takes into account the greatest galaxy clusters as well as the tiniest sub-atomic particles