A World-Class Education: Learning from International Models of Excellence and Innovation
(February 2012 Member Book)

The United States’ mediocre performance on international assessments has been cause for alarm. Other countries are developing world-class education systems that are both excellent and equitable—and they’ve done this relatively quickly. The question is, how?

In this month's Talks With an Author, the senior education advisor at Asia Society looks at world-class education in five top-performing countries—Singapore, Canada, Finland, Shanghai, and Australia—and at the lessons these systems hold for the United States.

• Listen to the talk, conducted by Amy Azzam, ASCD senior associate editor.
• Buy A World-Class Education: Learning from International Models of Excellence and Innovation.

Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap
(September 2011 Member Book)

Nine years after NCLB, although there have been improvements in test scores of U.S. minority students, serious gaps persist between the achievement of white students and their Black and Latino counterparts.

In this month’s Talks with an Author, two high-profile advocates for Black and Latino learners critically examine what’s wrong with popular approaches to closing achievement gaps in U.S. schools and discuss more potent approaches. Drawing from decades of research, they detail strategies any teacher can take to promote strong student engagement, inner orientations to learning, and in-school assets for at-risk minority kids.

• Listen to the talk, conducted by Naomi Thiers, ASCD associate editor.
• Buy Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap.