[RSCT] New issue of Rethinking Schools - great articles - special offer

[Bob Peterson]

Dear Rethinking Schools Listserv members,
I wanted to alert you to our new issue of Rethinking Schools -- I  
hope that you have seen it because you subscribe to our print  
magazine. If you don't subscribe, please do so using the discounted  
offer below. We need your subscription -- and that of your colleagues  
-- in order to have the financial resources to continue our work.  
This is a very hard time for the publishing "industry" and we are no  
exception. Please subscribe today -- if you already do, convince a  
friend or your local library to subscribe as well.
Thanks,
Bob Peterson
for Rethinking Schools



Dear Friend of Rethinking Schools,

At first glance, the dolls made by "American Girl" appear to be a  
parent's dream. American Girl isn't as vacuous as Barbie or as vile  
as Bratz. Better still, these dolls come with books that weave  
fictional narratives of plucky girls making their way through  
important moments in U.S. history.

However, as Simon Fraser University education professor Elizabeth  
Marshall points out in the cover story of Rethinking Schools' winter  
08/09 issue, we shouldn't be sucked in by the ersatz feminism—the  
message is consumption and lots of it.

In her essay, "Marketing American Girlhood," Marshall contends that  
the American Girl collection is less about strong girls, diversity,  
or education than about "hooking girls, their parents and  
grandparents into buying American Girl products and experience."

Also in this issue:

Remembering Mahmoud Darwish, by Naomi Shihab Nye. Although he was  
known as Palestine's most beloved poet, Nye reminds us that Darwish's  
words and spirit transcended race and geographic boundaries through  
poems such as the "The Prison Cell."

"Darwish," she writes, "had an uncanny ability to create  
unforgettable, richly descriptive poems, songs of homesick longing  
which resonate with displaced people everywhere."

A reprint of "The Prison Cell" and teaching ideas are included.

Teaching's Revolving Door, by Barbara Miner. New teachers leave the  
profession at an alarming rate—and there's no single reason or easy  
solution.

Miner, a former managing editor of Rethinking Schools, spent time in  
Chicago finding out how one teacher retention program could be a  
model to stem the tide.

Hunger, Academic Success, and the Hard Bigotry of Indifference, by  
Gerald Coles. The Bush administration may not have wanted to admit  
it, but hunger and food insecurity are a serious threat to children's  
lives.

"Certainly many poor children manage to succeed academically, but  
they do so while facing onerous forces that, but for the cruelty of  
policy makers in this rich nation, they should never have to confront  
in the first place," Coles writes.

A Test Scorer's Lament, by Todd Farley. This veteran of the testing  
business provides a sometimes humorous, but always damning look at  
how essay questions on standardized tests are scored.

Here's a healthy New Year's resolution that's easy to keep: subscribe  
to Rethinking Schools. Get Rethinking Schools for just $17.95 for one  
year or $29.95 for two years and receive a free PDF of the current  
issue as a gift. (This free PDF is a special bonus for online credit  
card subscription orders only.) Visit www.rethinkingschools.org or  
call 1-800-669-4192.

As a special bonus: we'll give you $5 off any two-year subscription  
to Rethinking Schools—a great gift for a teacher or teacher-to-be.  
Just go to the subscription order page and enter the special code  
5SJ2A9.

Rethinking Schools, edited by current and former classroom teachers,  
is a national quarterly magazine that advocates education reform in  
elementary and secondary public schools.

Thank you for your support,

Fred McKissack,

Rethinking Schools


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