Pedro Noguera

Excellence Through Equity is an inspiring look at how real-world educators are creating schools where all students are able to thrive. In these schools, educators understand that equity is not about treating all children the same. They are deeply committed to ensuring that each student receives what he or she individually needs to develop their full potential and succeed.To help educators with what can at times be a difficult and challenging journey, Blankstein and Noguera frame the book with five guiding principles of Courageous Leadership:Getting to your core.Making organizational meaning.Ensuring constancy and consistency of purpose.Facing the facts and your fears.Building sustainable relationships.They further emphasize that the practices are grounded in three important areas of research that are too often disregarded: (1) child development, (2) neuroscience, and (3) environmental influences on child development and learning.You'll hear from Carol Corbett Burris, Michael Fullan, Marcus J. Newsome, Paul Reville, Susan Szachowicz, and other bold practitioners and visionary thinkers who share compelling and actionable ideas, strategies, and experiences for closing the achievement gap in your classrooms and school.Ensuring that all students receive an education that cultivates their talents and potential is in all our common interest. As Andy Hargreaves writes in the coda: ""The opportunity for all Americans is to articulate and believe in an inspiring vision of educational change that is about what the next generation of America and Americans should become, not about a target or ranking that the nation should attain.""From the Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu:""Letting go of a system of winners and losers in favor of what is proposed in this book is a courageous leap forward that we all must take together. Let this bold, practical book be a guide; and may you travel into this new exciting vista, in which every child can succeed.

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.

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.

José Vilson writes about race, class, and education through stories from the classroom and researched essays. His rise from rookie math teacher to prominent teacher leader takes a twist when he takes on education reform through his now-blocked eponymous blog, TheJoseVilson.com. He calls for the reclaiming of the education profession while seeking social justice. José Vilson is a middle school math educator for in the Inwood/Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. He writes for Edutopia, GOOD, and TransformED / Future of Teaching, and his work has appeared in Education Week, CNN.com, Huffington Post, and El Diario / La Prensa.

As a group, Black and Latino boys face persistent and devastating disparities in achievement when compared to their White counterparts: they are more likely to obtain low test scores and grades, be categorised as learning disabled, be absent from honours and gifted programmes, and be overrepresented among students who are suspended and expelled from school. They are also less likely to enroll in colege and more likely to drop out. Put simply, they are among the most vulnerable populations in our schools.Schooling for Resilience investigates how seven newly formed schools, created specifically to serve boys of colour, set out to address the broad array of academic and social problems faced by Black and Latino boys. Drawing on student and teacher surveys, focus groups, interviews, and classroom observations, the authors investigate how these schools were developed, what practises they employed, and how their students responded academically and socially. In particular, they focus on the theory of action that informed each school's approach to educating Black and Latino boys and explore how choices about school structure and culture shaped students' development and achievement. In doing so, the authors identify educational strategies that all schools can learn from.This thoughtful, passionately argued volume promises to influence efforts to improve the achievement and life outcomes of Black and Latino boys for years to come.

As a group, Black and Latino boys face persistent and devastating disparities in achievement when compared to their White counterparts: they are more likely to obtain low test scores and grades, be categorised as learning disabled, be absent from honours and gifted programmes, and be overrepresented among students who are suspended and expelled from school. They are also less likely to enroll in colege and more likely to drop out. Put simply, they are among the most vulnerable populations in our schools.Schooling for Resilience investigates how seven newly formed schools, created specifically to serve boys of colour, set out to address the broad array of academic and social problems faced by Black and Latino boys. Drawing on student and teacher surveys, focus groups, interviews, and classroom observations, the authors investigate how these schools were developed, what practises they employed, and how their students responded academically and socially. In particular, they focus on the theory of action that informed each school's approach to educating Black and Latino boys and explore how choices about school structure and culture shaped students' development and achievement. In doing so, the authors identify educational strategies that all schools can learn from.This thoughtful, passionately argued volume promises to influence efforts to improve the achievement and life outcomes of Black and Latino boys for years to come.

In his new book, the author of the bestseller Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools examines the chronic under-performance of African American males in U.S. schools. Citing a plethora of disturbing academic outcomes for Black males, this book focuses on the historical, structural, educational, psychological, emotional, and cultural factors that influence the teaching and learning process for this student population. Howard discusses the potential and promise of Black males by highlighting their voices to generate new insights, create new knowledge, and identify useful practices that can significantly improve the schooling experiences and life chances of Black males. Howard calls for a paradigm shift in how we think about, teach, and study Black males.Book Features:Examines current structures, ideologies, and practices that both help and hinder the educational and social prospects of Black males.Translates frequently cited theoretical principles into research-based classroom practice.Documents teacher-student interactions, student viewpoints, and discusses the troubling role that sports plays in the lives of many Black males.Highlights voices and perspectives from Black male students about ways to improve their schooling experiences and outcomes.Identifies community-based programs that are helping Black males succeed.

Starting Up is a collection of first-person accounts by some of the best-known founders of new schools in America. Providing the kind of knowledge that only experience can teach, it is an invaluable resource for anyone in the process of or thinking about opening a new school, as well as those interested in the politics of today's era of new school development. The authors share how they worked to make their educational aspirations a reality while wrestling with social and economic obstacles, such as the distressed state of the communities in which these schools operated and the constant competition for resources. Starting Up tells real stories that capture the rich sense of possibility that currently exists for urban education.

""Unless we believe that those who have more are inherently superior to those who have less, we should be troubled by the fact that patterns of achievement are often fairly predictable, particularly with respect to students' race and class.""In Creating the Opportunity to Learn, Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera help navigate the turbid waters of evidence-based methodologies and chart a course toward closing (and eliminating) the academic achievement gap. Turning a critical eye to current and recent research, the authors present a comprehensive view of the achievement gap and advocate for strategies that contribute to the success of all children.Boykin and Noguera maintain that it is possible to close the achievement gap by abandoning failed strategies, learning from successful schools, and simply doing more of what the research shows is most effective. Success is founded on equity, but equity involves more than simply ensuring students have equal access to education; equity also entails a focus on outcomes and results.If we want to bring about significant improvements in those outcomes, we have to do more to address the context in which learning takes place. In short, we must create schools where a child's race or class is no longer a predictor for how well he or she might perform.

How It’s Being Done offers much-needed help to educators, providing detailed accounts of the ways in which unexpected schools—those with high-poverty and high-minority student populations—have dramatically boosted student achievement and diminished (and often eliminated) achievement gaps. How It’s Being Done builds on Karin Chenoweth’s widely hailed earlier volume, It’s Being Done, providing specific information about how such schools have exceeded expectations and met with unprecedented levels of success.

The political changes that have occurred in Grenada since 1951 are unique, particularly within the Commonwealth Caribbean which has had a tradition of stable two-party democracies, based upon the Westminster system of government. This study attempts to explain the dramatic shifts in political leadership that have occurred in Grenada during the forty year period examined. Three leaders, Eric Gairy, Maurice Bishop, and Herbert Blaize, each possessing substantially different ideological orientations, held power during this period. The factors responsible for their rise and eventual loss of power are analyzed and explained through historical and ethnographic research which was carried out in two stages: from July to December 1982, and from August 1987 to February 1988.