The education reforms in New York City s public schools begun under the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and School Chancellor Joel Klein have... been among the most ambitious of any large urban system in the country. Aimed at instituting evidence-based practices to produce higher and more equitable outcomes for all students, the policies that comprise the Children First initiative represent an attempt at organizational improvement and systemic learning that is unparalleled in U.S. public education. The tremendous scope of the reforms, the multiple and interrelated challenges involved in their implementation, and their undeniable impact all underscore their importance in providing lessons for the field and in framing the conversation about the next level of work in district-based reform.Written in an accessible style by highly respected scholars, the papers in this volume document and analyze particular components of the Children First reforms, including governance, community engagement, finance, accountability, and instruction.

Gloria Ladson-Billings and William F. Tate argue that education scholars can and must undertake work that speaks to the pressing public issues related... to education. In this volume, they are joined by renowned educators who have a reputation for engaging public interests and public policy in powerful and provocative ways. Together, they address such important issues as zero-tolerance policies, language-minority students, multicultural education, school reform, teaching for social justice, educational inquiry, curriculum, assessment, and much more. This compelling collection challenges policymakers and the public to take a greater hand in creating a quality education for all students.

The question of what living is for--of what one should care about and why--is the most important question a person can ask. Yet under the influence of... the modern research ideal, our colleges and universities have expelled this question from their classrooms, judging it unfit for organized study. In this eloquent and carefully considered book, Tony Kronman explores why this has happened and calls for the restoration of life's most important question to an honored place in higher education. The author contrasts an earlier era in American education, when the question of the meaning of life was at the center of instruction, with our own times, when this question has been largely abandoned by college and university teachers. In particular, teachers of the humanities, who once felt a special responsibility to guide their students in exploring the question of what living is for, have lost confidence in their authority to do so. And they have lost sight of the question itself in the blinding fog of political correctness that has dominated their disciplines for the past forty years. Yet Kronman sees a readiness for change--a longing among teachers as well as students to engage questions of ultimate meaning. He urges a revival of the humanities' lost tradition of studying the meaning of life through the careful but critical reading of great works of literary and philosophical imagination. And he offers here the charter document of that revival.

L’Éducation sentimentale, histoire d’un jeune homme est un roman écrit par Gustave Flaubert, et publié le 17 novembre 1869.Le cœur du récit est... tiré du roman de Sainte-Beuve, Volupté, qu’Honoré de Balzac avait déjà traité et d’une certaine manière réécrit avec le Lys dans la vallée. Le roman de Flaubert reprend le même sujet selon des règles narratives entièrement neuves, réinventant le roman d'apprentissage pour lui donner une profondeur et une acuité jamais atteinte. Malgré une critique négative lors de sa parution, il est devenu, depuis Proust, un livre de référence pour les romanciers du 20e siècle.Quoique moins connu que Madame Bovary, L'Éducation sentimentale est un roman complet, où le style de son auteur est arrivé à pleine maturation, et où le monde qu'il construit méticuleusement est celui qu'il connaît d'expérience. La fresque ainsi créée est à la fois un bilan du romantisme et le tableau précis d'une époque, faisant de Flaubert l'initiateur spirituel du naturalisme. Maupassant et Émile Zola le considèreront comme leur maître.

Since A Nation at Risk in 1983, the problem of education in the United States has occupied a prominent space in the media, in the halls of government,... and in the lives of those most involved in schools. After twenty-five years of inquiry, experimentation, debate and legislation such as No Child Left Behind, the problems seem as insoluble now as then. Education's Highest Aim presents the thoughts and experiences of researchers, students, teachers, administrators, parents, and other stakeholders who have applied a theoretical and practical framework derived from Chiara Lubich's spirituality of communion to their various scenes of teaching and learning. Education's Highest Aim offers proven and effective ways of dealing with the problematic realities found in primary, elementary, secondary, and university education. Education's Highest Aim includes chapters that present:* tensions inherent in understanding moral identity in the field of education* the principal features of an education of communion, and its relevance in the contemporary educational milieu* the history of the Focolare Movement and education* case studies that illustrate strategies for negotiating the basic tensions in the educational experience* accounts of successful elementary, secondary, and post-secondary schools organized around the basic principles of an education of communion* primary sources concerning an education of communion Education's Highest Aim will be valuable for anyone interested in understanding and improving education: teachers' groups; school administrators; university courses in curriculum, instruction, or educational foundations; parents' organizations; developers of public policy.