The Devil in Dover: An Insider’s Story of Dogma v. Darwin in Small-Town America
by Lauri Lebo (New Press, www.thenewpress.com; 256 pp., $24.95 hardback).
A Pennsylvania journalist dissects the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District “intelligent design” court case.
Falling for Science: Objects in Mind
edited by Sherry Turkle (MIT Press, mitpress.mit.edu; 232 pp., $24.95 hardback).
Prominent scientists and engineers, as well as 50 former MIT students, reflect on the childhood toys and tools that sparked their lifelong interest in science.
Frogs Into Princes: Writings on School Reform
by Larry Cuban (Teachers College Press, www.tcpress.com; 216 pp., $27.95 paperback).
A collection of articles spanning 45 years from the respected Stanford University scholar.
Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us
by Daniel Koretz (Harvard University Press, www.hup.harvard.edu; 368 pp., $29.95 hardback).
Deconstructs the complexities of achievement testing for the educational layman.
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
by Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein (Yale University Press, yalebooks.com; 304 pp., $26 hardback).
How “choice architecture” can steer people toward better decisions, including in education.
Raising the Grade: How High School Reform Can Save Our Youth and Our Nation
by Bob Wise (Jossey-Bass, an imprint of Wiley, www.josseybass.com; 304 pp., $24.95 hardback).
A former governor of West Virginia, now the president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, lays out his plan for revitalizing secondary schooling.
The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate on America’s Schools
by Kevin K. Kumashiro (Teachers College Press, www.tcpress.com; 128 pp., $15.95 paperback).
A critique of the assumptions on which much of modern school reform has been based.
Time to Learn: How a New School Schedule Is Making Smarter Kids, Happier Parents, and Safer Neighborhoods
by Christopher Gabrieli & Warren Goldstein (Jossey-Bass, an imprint of Wiley, www.josseybass.com; 304 pp., $24.95 hardback).
Touts the benefits of extending the school day by one to two hours, with strategies for enacting such a change.
Transformative Assessment
by W. James Popham (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, www.ascd.org; 150 pp., $22.95 paperback).
The whats, whys, and hows of formative assessment, written for teachers and administrators.