How To Choose The Perfect School

About the Book

How To Choose The Perfect School: What 21st Century Parents Need to Know about K-12 Education, will provide parents with the information they need to identify the best school for their child. It will also help parents identify K-12 schools and other alternatives that offer curriculum and teaching techniques based on principles of success developed through educational and psychological research – schools designed with the primary needs of the student in mind.

As a professional educator and a parent, the author, Mary K. Lang, Ed.D., is uniquely qualified to assist parents facing the monumental task of deciding which type of school their child should attend. Dr. Lang not only shares her personal experience as a parent committed to providing her children with an educational experience designed to foster success but also draws upon nearly three decades of experience as a professional educator to assess traditional schooling theory and practice. Dr. Lang asks parents to devise their own definition of what it means to be a well-educated individual in the 21st century to provide parents with a premise for evaluating different school choices. She also encourages parents to be creative when designing their childÕs overall educational program.

In the book, Dr. Lang provides a brief history of American educational reform and identifies the many public, private and independent schooling options that are now available to parents. In addition, she describes recent research into how the brain learns and shows how the findings from this research can be used to make small changes in existing schools to significantly improve a child's chances of succeeding as a student and as an adult. Dr. Lang also describes the concept of multiple types of intelligence and suggests ways in which schools can engage learners of all types. Finally, she identifies the features of an educational setting, both curricular and physical, which indicate that a school has been designed with the principles of contemporary educational research and theory in mind. To encourage the practical application of the information in her book, the author provides a "report card" that parents can use when evaluating schools. This "report card" contains a checklist of the many criteria that educational programs should offer their students with sample questions for parents to use during the school interview process.

How To Choose The Perfect School: What 21st Century Parents Need to Know about K-12 Education, is for parents who want to ensure that their child receives the type of education that will enable them to reach their fullest potential.

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About the Author

Dr. Mary Lang has been a professional educator for over 25 years. She founded and is currently executive director of the Moscow Charter School in Moscow, Idaho, the state's first charter school. How To Choose The Perfect School: What 21st Century Parents Need to Know about K-12 Education is the result of her experiences as an educator and as a parent.

Dr. Lang's experience in education is broad. She holds a Doctorate degree in Curriculum and Instructional Design and Educational Leadership and Master's degree in Speech Communication from Auburn University. She also has a Bachelor's degree in Speech Pathology from Kent State University. She has experience teaching all age levels including pre-school through university level courses and supervising other professionals in education. She planned, developed and implemented the design of two on-going school curriculum programs with an emphasis on the arts and educational technology. In her early professional years, she started and directed a successful, private, clinical practice in speech pathology. She has been an educational administrator for the past 15 years. In starting these programs, she worked closely with educators, parents, politicians and others. She is a skilled administrator, teacher, author and entrepreneur.

As a result of Dr. Lang's great respect for the decision-making skills of parents, and because she is a mother of two school-age children, she can easily empathize with the challenges parents experience when faced with school choice, and are trying to identify the perfect school for their children. She has written this book for these parents.