The Cage-Busting Teacher adopts the logic of Cage-Busting Leadership and applies it to the unique challenges and opportunities of classroom teachers. Detailed, accessible, and thoroughly engaging, it uncovers the many ways in which teachers can break out of familiar constraints in order to influence school and classroom practice, education policy, and school reform. "Cage-busting is concrete, precise, andpractical," writes Frederick M. Hess. This invaluable book helps teachers understand why and how to revisit their assumptions and enables them to have greater impacts upon their schools and beyond. Based on interviews with hundreds of teachers, teacher advocates, union leaders, and others, Hess identifies the challenges teachers face, seeks concrete and workable solutions, and offers recommendations to put those solutions in place. A uniquely practical and inspiring book, The Cage-Busting Teacher is for educators who want to shape the schools and systems in which they work.
About the Author: Frederick M. Hess is resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. An educator, political scientist, and author, Hess studies a range of K-12 and higher education issues. His books include Cage-Busting Leadership, Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age, The Same Thing Over and Over, Education Unbound, Common Sense School Reform, Revolution at the Margins, and Spinning Wheels. He is also the author of the popular Education Week blog Rick Hess Straight Up. Hess's work has appeared in scholarly and popular outlets such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Educational Review, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, American Politics Quarterly, Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, U.S. News & World Report, National Affairs, The Atlantic, National Review, USA Today, Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. He has edited widely cited volumes on the Common Core, education philanthropy, urban school reform, how to stretch the school dollar, education entrepreneurship, the federal role in education, and No Child Left Behind. Hess serves as executive editor of Education Next, as lead faculty member for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program, as senior fellow for the Leadership Institute of Nevada, and on the review boards for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and the Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools. He also serves on the boards of directors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and 4.0 Schools. A former high school social studies teacher, he teaches or has taught at Georgetown University, Rice University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and the University of Virginia.