Scott J. Peters

Daniel J. O'Connell

A call to action in an ongoing battle against industrial agriculture From the early twentieth century and across generations to the present, In the Struggle brings together the stories of eight politically engaged scholars, documenting their opposition to industrial-scale agribusiness in California. As the narrative unfolds, their previously censored and suppressed research, together with personal accounts of intimidation and subterfuge, is introduced into the public arena for the first time. In the Struggle lays out historic, subterranean confrontations over water rights, labor organizing, and the corruption of democratic principles and public institutions. As California’s rural economy increasingly consolidates into the hands of land barons and corporations, the scholars’ work shifts from analyzing problems and formulating research methods to organizing resistance and building community power. Throughout their engagement, they face intense political blowback as powerful economic interests work to pollute and undermine scientific inquiry and the civic purposes of public universities. The findings and the pressure put upon the work of these scholars—Paul Taylor, Ernesto Galarza, and Isao Fujimoto among them—are a damning indictment of the greed and corruption that flourish under industrial-scale agriculture. After almost a century of empirical evidence and published research, a definitive finding becomes clear: land consolidation and economic monopoly are fundamentally detrimental to democracy and the well-being of rural societies.

Scholars and the Fight against Industrial Agribusiness in California

In the Struggle

Jonathan A. Plucker

In Excellence Gaps in Education, Jonathan A. Plucker and Scott J. Peters shine a spotlight on “excellence gaps”—the achievement gaps among subgroups of students performing at the highest levels of achievement. Much of the focus of recent education reform has been on closing gaps in achievement between students from different racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic backgrounds by bringing all students up to minimum levels of proficiency. Yet issues related to excellence gaps have been largely absent from discussions about how to improve our schools and communities. Plucker and Peters argue that these significant gaps reflect the existence of a persistent talent underclass in the United States among African American, Hispanic, Native American, and poor students, resulting in an incalculable loss of potential among our fastest growing populations. Drawing on the latest research and a wide range of national and international data, the authors outline the scope of the problem and make the case that excellence gaps should be targeted for elimination. They identify promising interventions for talent development already underway in schools and provide a detailed review of potential strategies, including universal screening, flexible grouping, targeted programs, and psychosocial interventions. Excellence Gaps in Education has the potential for changing our national conversation about equity and excellence and bringing fresh attention to the needs of high-potential students from underrepresented backgrounds.

Expanding Opportunities for Talented Students

Excellence Gaps in Education

Dina Brulles

This book is intended to support educators in the design and implementation of comprehensive gifted education plans. From planning to actual implementation, this book takes the reader from goals and purpose to assessing student needs and program design. The authors begin with a broad overview of best practices in programming and services, highlighting connections to student needs, programming standards, and state laws. Their recommendations include philosophical, cultural, and practical considerations and data-based decision making. In this book, Peters and Brulles guide the reader through the process of determining the most optimal programming methods for schools to take based on their individual needs and circumstances. With this book, schools will be able to design and develop programs and/or services that lay the foundation necessary to ensure all students are appropriately challenged.

From Purpose to Implementation

Designing Gifted Education Programs and Services

Scholars working for communities' rights in California's Central Valley In the Struggle tells the story of the persistent engagement of eight public scholars spanning generations of sustained endeavor, a dogged war in which workers and scholars together repeatedly took on the powerful agricultural industry, the political machines, and even the universities. The stories begin in the 1930s with Paul Taylor, a professor of economics at University of California, Berkeley, who pioneered field research and activism as he travelled through the areas marked by the Great Depression, together with his wife, photographer Dorothea Lange. Working in the heart of California's agricultural Central Valley, Taylor was the first of a succession of scholars who shared the dual commitment to research and engagement, to making problems visible and to effecting change through strategic action. Taylor and Lange intentionally wove their political engagement into their identities and work as researchers, as they conducted studies, led strikes, organized underserved communities, founded community development programs, created nonprofit institutions, and more. This book documents a tradition of politically engaged scholarship in one of the world's most dramatic contexts, full of disparities and contradictions, but also ripe with opportunities to make a difference. It covers a struggle that continues undiminished in the present.

Scholars and the Fight Against Industrial Agribusiness in California

Michael S. Matthews

Matthew T. McBee

D. Betsy McCoach

Beyond Gifted Education: Designing and Implementing Advanced Academic Programs provides the first comprehensive look at designing and implementing K-12 advanced academic student programs. Written by four leading experts in the field, Beyond Gifted Education takes the concerned gifted program coordinator or school administrator through the process of identifying needs, responding with programming, and then finding students who are well-suited for and would benefit from advanced academic programming. Detailed examples walk the reader through real-world scenarios and programs common to the K-12 gifted coordinator on topics such as cluster grouping, acceleration, and increasing diversity. Throughout the book connections are made to Common Core state Standards, Response to Intervention, and a wealth of outside research in order to support ideas.

Designing and Implementing Advanced Academic Programs

Beyond Gifted Education

Ruby Green Smith

Helene R. Dillard

First published in 1949, this book records the story of Cornell University's success in the field of extramural education: the NY State Colleges of Agriculture and Home Economics, the NY State Veterinary College, and the ILR School.

Scott J. Peters

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