A Journey Through America’s Charter-School Laboratory
New Orleans journalist Sarah Carr considers the big issues of education reform today through the lives and experiences of New Orleans’ kids and educators.
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A Candid and Controversial Look at School Reform
“The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” Diane Ravitch’s 20th book, reflects on her shift from conservative to more liberal views on education. However, she makes the point toward the end of the book that she never changed her fundamental ideology of education — mainly that everyone should be afforded a high-quality education. What changed is her view of how to reach that goal.
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The Dishonor of Violence
Few nonfiction books take the reader on a journey of discovery in which the audience, the author and the subject all seem not to know where it will lead. Fox …
Read MoreRandom Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
Random Family offers a clear-eyed look into the poverty-stricken world of the South Bronx in the 1980s.
Read MoreThe Lost Children of Wilder
New York Times reporter Nina Bernstein chronicled the contentious 26-year case of a troubled foster care child, Shirley Wilder, in her in-depth book, The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle …
Read MoreA Hope in the Unseen
Ron Suskind’s A Hope in the Unseen explains how and why poverty is cyclical in this country. More importantly, the book shows (not tells) why it is so difficult, nearly impossible, for impoverished Americans to …
Read MoreWhy Can’t U Teach Me 2 Read?
At 24, Yamilka could not take the subway alone without getting lost. Twenty-two year old Alejandro had never bought himself a book. Nineteen-year-old Antonio never finished high school. All three …
Read MoreA Path of Hope: Suskind’s Hope in the Unseen
Ron Suskind’s “A Hope in the Unseen” opens as Cedric Jennings memorizes SAT words in his Washington, D.C. classroom rather than attend an assembly where his name would be called—and …
Read MoreThere Are No Children Here
Alex Kotlowitz’s There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America, captures the life of two young brothers growing up in the projects …
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A Classroom Hero
In “Among Schoolchildren,” author Tracy Kidder chronicles one year in the life of a 5th grade class in Massachusetts and their teacher, Chris Zajac. He shows how hard Zajac works to build a connection with every single child, and how she tries to boost all her students academically.
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