10 Great Curricula is a collection of stories written by educators who have come to understand curricula differently as a result of their engagement with a graduate course and its instructor. The book represents the best of what can be found in teaching and learning, in general, and in the quest for meaningful ways to understand curricula in…

A significant factor for many people deciding where to live is the quality of the local school district, with superior schools creating a price premium for housing. The result is a "race to the top," as all school districts attempt to improve their performance in order to attract homebuyers. Given the importance of school districts to the daily…

This book describes the teaching experiences of Stella Gipson Polk, who taught in one-room schools in rural Texas. She was 16 at the time she took her first teaching job in 1918. After high school graduation, she had intended to enter a 4-year college or university. However, World War I left numerous schools without teachers as many were called…

In the Four Corners region of rural southwest Colorado is Battle Rock Charter School--a one-room school attended by students in grades 1-6 that live in McElmo Canyon. For most of the 1900s, the canyon's isolation meant that people lived and worked as they had in the previous century, and the community was allowed to retain its tiny school because…

This book presents the oral histories of one male and seven female retired teachers who began their careers during the 1920s and 1930s in one-room schools in the Texas hill country. These teachers continued to teach until after the desegregation of public schools in the 1960s. The married black couple included began teaching in rural Texas in 1931…

A unique collection of photographs and personal letters, journals and diaries, newspaper clippings, official reports, readers and textbooks, mail-order catalogues, architectural plans and diagrams recreate the flavor of the Canadian one-room school and the rural communities it served from the 1840's to 1960's. The emphasis is on the human…

This book aims to understand Virginia's rural past through a study of its schools. Rural Virginia schools of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were affected by at least three distinctly southern influences: the legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction, regional underdevelopment and poverty, and the dilemma of racial coexistence in the…

This book describes the experiences of 26 retired rural school teachers from western Wisconsin. The book was inspired by the community solidarity of the Cloverdale Community Club (Wisconsin) in maintaining the old Cloverdale School building. Cloverdale School was a typical one-room rural school, built in 1857 and closed by the consolidation…

This book examines the educational history of the Midwest during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Specifically, the book overviews the development of rural education in Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Minnesota. Data sources include the reports of state superintendents; Annual Reports of the…

Written in 1910, this book was intended to enlighten rural school teachers, superintendents, and school board members as to the changing role of schools in meeting the needs of rural society and the demands of modern life. The contention was that rural schools should not prepare students for life in town, but rather prepare students for rural…

This book overviews the history of one-room schools in the United States during the 19th century and early 20th century in the midwestern states of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The book is based on rural school records, correspondence of early school officers, contemporary texts, and…

This book depicts the lives of women who taught school in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on the prairies and plains of Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. The book is based on the narratives, letters, and diaries of 96 schoolwomen and on interviews with living pioneers, memoirs, school reports, photographs, and other documents. Part 1 includes…