Diane Ravitch, America's foremost historian of education, says that public education in the United States is one of the pillars of our democratic society. In this eloquent book, she explains that our public schools have been wrongly criticized for low achievement, when federal data show that test scores and graduation rates are at their highest point in history - for black students, Hispanic students, white students, and Asian students - and dropout rates are at their lowest point in history.

Al Franken, Giant of the Senate is a book about an unlikely campaign that had an even more improbable ending: the closest outcome in history and an unprecedented eight-month recount saga, which is pretty funny in retrospect. It's a book about what happens when the nation's foremost progressive satirist gets a chance to serve in the United States Senate and, defying the low expectations of the pundit class, actually turns out to be good at it.

National leader Stacey Abrams has written the guide to harnessing the strengths of being an outsider and succeeding anyway. Leadership is hard. Convincing others - and yourself - that you are capable of taking charge and achieving more requires insight and courage. Lead from the Outside is the handbook for outsiders, written with an eye toward the challenges that hinder women, people of color, the working class, members of the LGBTQ community, and millennials ready to make change.

In How to Raise an Adult, Julie Lythcott-Haims draws on research; on conversations with admissions officers, educators, and employers; and on her own insights as a mother and as a student dean to highlight the ways in which overparenting harms children, their stressed-out parents, and society at large.

Through the Fires is a triumphant comeback story in life and business. Robert Carr reflects on decades of struggle that took him to the brink of financial ruin at age 50. Carr would later make a fortune in the card payments industry only to lose almost everything in 2009 after one of the most devastating data breaches ever.

When Mark Zuckerberg announced in front of a cheering Oprah audience his $100 million pledge to transform the Newark Schools - and to solve the education crisis in every city in America - it looked like a huge win for then-mayor Cory Booker and governor Chris Christie. But their plans soon ran into a constituency not so easily moved - Newark's key education players, fiercely protective of their billion-dollar-per-annum system.

At age 12, Nikki Haley started to do the bookkeeping and taxes for her parents' business. After graduating from college and entering the business world, she watched other business owners battle government bureaucracy and overregulation. Her frustration inspired her to get into politics and run for the state legislature. That first campaign, against an entrenched incumbent, led to racial and religious slurs and threats - but Haley, like her parents, refused to back down.

Here is the gritty, powerful story of Thomas Sowell's life-long education in the school of hard knocks, a journey that took him from Harlem to the Marines, the Ivy League, and a career as a controversial writer, teacher, and economist in government and private industry. It is also the story of the dramatically changing times in which this personal odyssey took place.

A new book from the award-winning teacher and best-selling author, Ron Clark, providing rules for parents and teachers to help kids succeed in school.

From Cecile Richards - the president of Planned Parenthood, daughter of the late Governor Ann Richards, featured speaker at the Women's March on Washington, and "the heroine of the resistance" (Vogue) - comes a story about learning to lead and make change, based on a lifetime of fighting for women's rights and social justice.

"The ultimate Obama insider" (The New York Times) and longest-serving senior advisor in the Obama White House shares her journey as a daughter, mother, lawyer, business leader, public servant, and leader in government at a historic moment in American history.

When 13-year-old Vidal Chastanet told photographer Brandon Stanton that his principal, Ms. Lopez, was the person who most influenced his life, it was the pebble that started a whirlwind for Nadia Lopez and her small, new public school in one of Brooklyn's most wretched communities. The posting on Stanton's wildly popular site, Humans of New York ( HONY), went megaviral. Lopez - not long before on the verge of quitting - found herself in the national spotlight and headed for a meeting with Obama as well as the beneficiary of a million-dollar IndieGoGo campaign.

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics is filled with personal stories that bring to life heroic figures we all know and introduce listeners to some of those who’ve worked behind the scenes but are still hidden. Whatever their perch, the Colored Girls, which is what Donna Brazile, Yolanda Caraway, Leah Daughtry, and Minyon Moore call themselves - are always focused on the larger goal of “hurrying history” so that every American - regardless of race, gender or religious background - can have a seat at the table. This audiobook tells their story.

Drawing on nearly three decades in education - from his mother’s after-school program on Chicago’s South Side to his tenure as Secretary of Education in DC - How Schools Work follows Arne as he takes on challenges at every turn: gangbangers in Chicago housing projects, parents who call him racist, teachers who insist they can’t help poor kids, unions that refuse to modernize, Tea Partiers who call him an autocrat, affluent white progressive moms who hate yearly tests, and even the NRA, which once labeled Arne the “most extreme anti-gun member of President Obama's Cabinet.”

In a reporting tour de force, award-winning journalist Steven Brill takes an uncompromising look at the adults who are fighting over America’s failure to educate its children and points the way to reversing that failure. Brill not only takes us inside their roller-coaster battles, he also concludes with a surprising prescription for what it will take from both sides to put the American dream back in America’s schools.

When Mark Zuckerberg announced in front of a cheering Oprah audience his $100 million pledge to transform the Newark Schools - and to solve the education crisis in every city in America - it looked like a huge win for then-mayor Cory Booker and governor Chris Christie. But their plans soon ran into a constituency not so easily moved - Newark's key education players, fiercely protective of their billion-dollar-per-annum system.

In a reporting tour de force, award-winning journalist Steven Brill takes an uncompromising look at the adults who are fighting over America’s failure to educate its children and points the way to reversing that failure. Brill not only takes us inside their roller-coaster battles, he also concludes with a surprising prescription for what it will take from both sides to put the American dream back in America’s schools.

What would it take?That was the question that Geoffrey Canada found himself asking. What would it take to change the lives of poor children, not one by one, through heroic interventions and occasional miracles, but in big numbers, and in a way that could be replicated nationwide? The question led him to create the Harlem Children's Zone, a 97-block laboratory in central Harlem where he is testing new and sometimes controversial ideas about poverty in America.

Justin Trudeau has spent his life in the public eye. From the moment he was born, the first son of an iconic prime minister and his young wife, Canadians have witnessed the highs and the lows, sharing in his successes and mourning with him during tragic times. But few beyond Justin's closest circle have heard his side of his unique journey. Now, in Common Ground, Justin Trudeau reveals how the events of his life have influenced him and formed the ideals that drive him today.

In this full and frank memoir - a personal story of duty, family, justice, politics and resilience - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo reflects on his rise, fall, and rise in politics, and recounts his defining personal and political moments and tough but necessary lessons he has learned along the way.

In this 10th anniversary edition, renowned political commentator Cokie Roberts once again examines the nature of women's roles. From mother to mechanic, sister to soldier, Roberts reveals how much progress has now been made and how much further we have to go. Updated and expanded to include a diverse new cast of women, including Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, Billie Jean King, and others, this collection of essays offers tremendous insight into the opportunities and challenges that women encounter today.

You've probably heard clips from Senator Clinton's interview with Barbara Walters. But now you can listen to her full account of her years in the White House. Hillary Clinton vividly describes her pain over her husband's betrayal with Monica Lewinky saying that former President Bill Clinton lied to her about the relationship until the weekend before he admitted the nature of it to a grand jury.

Mitt Romney has masterfully positioned himself as the front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Even though he's become a household name, the former Massachusetts governor remains an enigma to many in America, his character and core convictions elusive, his record little known. Who is the man behind that high-wattage smile? In this definitive, unflinching biography by Boston Globe investigative reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, listeners will finally discover the real Romney.

In the first comprehensive biography of Chavez, Miriam Pawel offers a searching yet empathetic portrayal. Chavez emerges here as a visionary figure with tragic flaws; a brilliant strategist who sometimes stumbled; and a canny, streetwise organizer whose pragmatism was often at odds with his elusive, soaring dreams.

In The Power of a Plant, globally acclaimed teacher and self-proclaimed CEO (Chief Eternal Optimist) Stephen Ritz shows you how, in one of the nation's poorest communities, his students thrive in school and in life by growing, cooking, eating, and sharing the bounty of their green classroom.

The man behind some of the greatest political changes of the last decade, David Axelrod has devoted a lifetime to questioning political certainties and daring to bring fresh thinking into the political landscape. Whether as a child hearing John F. Kennedy stump in New York or as a strategist guiding the first African American to the White House, Axelrod shows in Believer how his own life stands at the center of the tumultuous American century.

Just Like Us tells the story of four high school students whose parents entered this country illegally from Mexico. All four of the girls have grown up in the United States, and all four want to live the American dream, but only two have documents. As the girls attempt to make it into college, they discover that only the legal pair see a clear path forward. A coming-of-age story about girlhood and friendship, as well as the resilience required to transcend poverty, Just Like Us is also a book about identity.

Life is a series of negotiations, whether or not you think of yourself as a negotiator. From seemingly insignificant daily decisions to major life choices, you negotiate every time you aim to persuade, argue over a decision, or resolve a conflict. But as negotiations and leadership expert Erica Ariel Fox reveals, the most important negotiations - the ones that determine the impact of our actions and the quality of our lives - are those we have with ourselves.

In The Formula: Unlocking the Secrets to Raising Highly Successful Children, Harvard economist Ronald Ferguson, named in a New York Times profile as the foremost expert on the US educational "achievement gap," along with award-winning journalist Tatsha Robertson, reveal an intriguing blueprint for helping children from all types of backgrounds become successful adults.

In his commencement address to the graduating class of 2016, James E. Ryan, dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, offered remarkable advice to the crowd of hopeful men and women eager to make their marks on the world. The key to achieving emotional connections and social progress, he told them, can be found in five essential questions.