"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…

In "The Enduring Promise of America's Great City Schools," Michael Casserly presents a forthright assessment of the past performance and future potential of large urban PreK-12 school districts in the United States. From a vantage of nearly five decades of work within the Council of the Great City Schools, which now represents…

In cities across the United States, affluent White newcomers are moving into historically Black neighborhoods, presenting both a challenge and an opportunity for public schools. In many cases, the newcomers either avoid their local schools or use their political power to push aside families who have lived in the neighborhood for years. But there's…

Hip-hop, born after the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, is an expression and embodiment of liberation. This book explores the creative liberation, political liberation, and communicative liberation for youth as one exemplar of culturally sustaining pedagogy. The authors share what students and teachers learned in a high school class where…

Silent, single-file lines. Detention for putting a head on a desk. Rules for how to dress, how to applaud, how to complete homework. Walk into some of the most acclaimed urban schools today and you will find similar recipes of behavior, designed to support student achievement. But what do these "scripts" accomplish? Immersing readers…

In "Natural Allies," Soo Hong offers a paradigm shift in how we think about family engagement with schools. Hong challenges the conventional depiction of parents and teachers as "natural enemies," and shows how, through teachers' initiative and commitment, they can become natural allies instead. Based on a three-year…

In "Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Promising Practices for African American Male Students," I take us on a journey into teachers' perceptions of the impact of implementing culturally responsive pedagogical (CRP) practices on the student learning outcomes of African American male students. The book also helps to identify teachers'…

Educators often invoke the term "care" to describe why they entered the field and what compels them to continue. This book argues that care, as typically described and enacted, is not sufficient for leading schools, particularly those serving Black and Latinx children. Instead, school leaders need to embrace "radical care."…

In "Striving in Common," Jennifer Jellison Holme and Kara S. Finnigan seek to build a bridge between two largely disparate, yet interconnected, conversations--those among education reformers on the one hand, and urban reformers on the other. In this carefully considered volume, the authors show how the challenges faced by urban schools…

After a decade as an education professor, Greg Michie decided to return to his teaching roots. He went back to the same Chicago neighborhood, the same public school, and the same grade level and subject he taught in the 1990s. But much had changed--both in schools and in the world outside them. "Same As It Never Was" chronicles Michie's…

In the thoroughly revised second edition of "Start Where You Are, But Don't Stay There," H. Richard Milner IV addresses the knowledge and insights required on the part of teachers and school leaders to serve students of color. Milner focuses on a crucial issue in teacher training and professional education: the need to prepare teachers…

"The More We Look, the Deeper It Gets: Transforming the Curriculum through Art" provides inspiration and practical guidance for teaching with works of art in order to deepen engagement and improve student learning. The book introduces the Pyramid of Inquiry, a flexible framework that teachers of all subject areas can use to support…

Through powerful narratives of parents of Black and Latinx students with disabilities, this book provides a unique look at the relationship between disability, race, urban space, and market-driven educational policies. Offering significant insights into complex forms of educational exclusion, the text illustrates the actual challenges and…

"Children at the Center" provides a closely observed account of a decade-long effort to reshape the scope, direction, and quality of the Boston Public Schools' early childhood programs. Drawing on multiple perspectives and voices from the field, the authors highlight the reflective, collaborative, inquiry-driven approach undertaken by…

"We Dare Say Love" takes up the critically important issue of what it means to educate Black male students in a large urban district. It chronicles the development and implementation of the African American Male Achievement Initiative in Oakland Unified School District, following a small group of Black male educators who changed district…