Teach for America and the Struggle for Urban School Reform

Teach for America and the Struggle for Urban School Reform PDF

Author: Katherine Crawford-Garrett

Publisher: Educational Psychology

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781433123788

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This book traces the experiences of one cohort of Teach For America (TFA) corps members as they reconcile their hopes for their students with the reality of teaching in a district that favors compliance over compassion. The voices of the teachers are highlighted as they wrestle with urban poverty, question bureaucratic mandates, resist dehumanizing reform initiatives, and experiment with critical pedagogy.

Hope Against Hope

Hope Against Hope PDF

Author: Sarah Carr

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2013-02-26

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1608194957

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Geraldlynn is a lively, astute 14-year-old. Her family, displaced by Hurricane Katrina, returns home to find a radically altered public education system. Geraldlynns parents hope their daughter's new school will prepare her college-but the teenager has ideals and ambitions of her own. ? ? Aidan is a fresh-faced Harvard grad drawn to New Orleans by the possibility of bringing change to a flood-ravaged city. He teaches at an ambitious charter school with a group of newcomers determined to show the world they can use science, data, and hard work to build a model school. ? ? Mary Laurie is a veteran educator who becomes principal of one of the first public high schools to reopen after Katrina. Laurie and her staff find they must fight each day not only to educate the city's teenagers, but to keep the Walker community safe and whole. ? ? In this powerful narrative non-fiction debut, the lives of these three characters provide readers with a vivid and sobering portrait of education in twenty-first-century America. Hope Against Hope works in the same tradition as Random Family and There Are No Children Here to capture the challenges of growing up and learning in a troubled world.

Urban Teaching

Urban Teaching PDF

Author: Lois Weiner

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2016-02-19

Total Pages: 113

ISBN-13: 080775689X

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This significantly revised edition will help prospective and new city teachers navigate the realities of city teaching. Now the classic introduction to urban teaching, this book explains how global, national, state, and local reforms have impacted what teachers need to know to not only survive but to do their jobs well. The Third Edition melds new insights and perspectives from Daniel Jerome, New York City teacher, social justice activist, and parent of colour, with what Lois Weiner, a seasoned teacher educator has learned from research and decades of experience working with city teachers and students in a variety of settings. Together, the authors explore how successful teachers deal with the complexity, difficulty, and rewarding challenges of teaching in today's city schools.

Worth Striking For

Worth Striking For PDF

Author: Isabel Nunez

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2015-02-20

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0807756261

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Written by activist educators, Worth Striking For speaks to teachers and teachers-to-be about the drastic changes in the landscape of public education in recent decades, and focuses on what they need to know about the debates and complex issues of reform affecting their lives and professions. The book identifies the most significant shifts in education policy, including how policy has helped or hindered the broader educational purposes of schools. Using the 2012 Chicago teachers strike as a framing device, the authors demonstrate how each of the policy areas addressed is critically important to teachers' lives and work. Each chapter describes one of the Chicago teachers' demands, and then explores a related policy arena through the lens of an associated philosophical purpose of education. The text features individually authored vignettes that juxtapose the authors' personal experiences with the issues, bringing policy and policy activism to life. This hopeful book will inspire and empower teachers to take action in their schools, communities, districts, and states.

Powerful Reforms with Shallow Roots

Powerful Reforms with Shallow Roots PDF

Author: Larry Cuban

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2014-04-15

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 0807774375

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Drastic reform measures are being implemented in growing numbers of urban communities as the public’s patience has finally run out with perpetually nonperforming public schools. This authoritative and eye-opening volume examines governance changes in six cities during the 1990s, where either mayoral control of schools has occurred or where noneducators have been appointed to lead school districts. Featuring up-close, in-depth case studies of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Boston, San Diego, and Seattle, this book explores the reasons why these cities chose to alter their traditional school governance structures and analyzes what happened when the reforms were implemented and whether or not teachers and students performed better because of them. “Provides useful perspectives on the complexities of educational change that is relevant to all kinds of school systems . . . of interest to elected officials, other policymakers, business leaders, and educators.” —Richard W. Riley, Former U.S. Secretary of Education “A ‘must-read’ for policymakers intent on improving the academic performance of children in America’s urban centers . . . offers important insight and an excellent overview of the reforms being tested in the six urban centers.” —Ted Sanders, President, Education Commission of the States “Every urban political official, indeed, every governor, business leader, and state legislator should study the urban school reforms described in this book” —James B. Hunt, Jr., Former Governor of North Carolina and Chairman, James B. Hunt Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy “A ‘must-read’ for educators. This book clearly defines what it takes to make significant changes in urban districts” —Floretta McKenzie, Former Superintendent, District of Columbia Public Schools

Listening to Urban Kids

Listening to Urban Kids PDF

Author: Bruce L. Wilson

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2001-01-11

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 9780791448397

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Independent researchers interview urban middle school students to get their impressions of the teachers that help them to succeed in schools.

It Takes a City

It Takes a City PDF

Author: Paul T. Hill

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2001-09-19

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780815723554

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Mayoral takeovers of big city public education systems are desperation measures. After decades of decline in school quality, something must be done to make sure city children learn enough to function as adults in American society. But how can city leaders make a real difference? This book, a sequel to Fixing Urban Schools (Brookings, 1998), is a practical guide for mayors, civic leaders, school board members, and involved citizens. Based on case studies of city reform initiatives in Boston, Memphis, New York City District #2, San Antonio, San Francisco, and Seattle, the book provides practical guidance on how to formulate a plan bold enough to work and how to deal with political opposition to change. It concludes that mayors and private sector leaders must stay engaged in education reform by creating new public-private institutions to support high quality schools.

How a City Learned to Improve Its Schools

How a City Learned to Improve Its Schools PDF

Author: Anthony S. Bryk

Publisher: Harvard Education Press

Published: 2023-04-18

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1682538230

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A comprehensive analysis of the astonishing changes that elevated the Chicago public school system from one of the worst in the nation to one of the most improved. How a City Learned to Improve Its Schools tells the story of the extraordinary thirty-year school reform effort that changed the landscape of public education in Chicago. Acclaimed educational researcher Anthony S. Bryk joins five coauthors directly involved in Chicago’s education reform efforts, Sharon Greenberg, Albert Bertani, Penny Sebring, Steven E. Tozer, and Timothy Knowles, to illuminate the many factors that led to this transformation of the Chicago Public Schools. Beginning in 1987, Bryk and colleagues lay out the civic context for reform, outlining the systemic challenges such as segregation, institutional racism, and income and resource disparities that reformers grappled with as well as the social conflicts they faced. Next, they describe how fundamental changes occurred at every level of schooling: enhancing classroom instruction; organizing more engaged and effective local school communities; strengthening the preparation, recruitment, and support of teachers and school leaders; and sustaining an ambitious evidence-based campaign to keep the public informed on the progress of key reform initiatives and the challenges still ahead. The power of this capacity building is validated by unprecedented increases in benchmarks such as graduation rates and college matriculation. This riveting account introduces key actors within the schools, city government, and business community, and the partnerships they forged. It also reveals the surprising yet essential role of Chicago's innovative information infrastructure in aligning disparate initiatives. In making clear how elements such as advocacy, civic capacity, improvement research, and strong democracy contributed to large-scale progress in the system's 600-plus schools, the book highlights the greater lessons that the Chicago story offers for system improvement overall.

The One Best System

The One Best System PDF

Author: David B. Tyack

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1974

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780674637825

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The One Best System presents a major new interpretation of what actually happened in the development of one of America's most influential institutions. At the same time it is a narrative in which the participants themselves speak out: farm children and factory workers, frontier teachers and city superintendents, black parents and elite reformers. And it encompasses both the achievements and the failures of the system: the successful assimilation of immigrants, racism and class bias; the opportunities offered to some, the injustices perpetuated for others. David Tyack has placed his colorful, wide-ranging view of history within a broad new framework drawn from the most recent work in history, sociology, and political science. He looks at the politics and inertia, the ideologies and power struggles that formed the basis of our present educational system. Using a variety of social perspectives and methods of analysis, Tyack illuminates for all readers the change from village to urban ways of thinking and acting over the course of more than one hundred years.

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