The Best Urban Education Books 2024

1. Learning-Focused Leadership in Action : Improving Instruction in Schools and Districts, Used [Paperback]

In an educational context where school and district performance is of increasing focus, it's essential for leaders at all levels of the educational system to focus on improving student performance. This volume zeros in on a promising set of strategies and practices for all leaders to motivate, support, and sustain learning in contemporary schools. Learning-Focused Leadership in Action explores what it means for educational leadership to be "learning-focused," what this looks like in practice at both the school and district level, and how such leadership changes can be set in motion. Drawing on extensive case study research in schools and districts that are making progress on learning improvement, this volume explores how leaders at all levels of the educational system can productively seek to improve the quality of learning opportunities and student performance, no matter how challenging the circumstances.

Learning-Focused Leadership in Action : Improving Instruction in Schools and Districts, Used [Paperback]

2. Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 verdict in Milliken v. Bradley , thereby blocking the state of Michigan from merging the Detroit public school system with those of the surrounding suburbs. This decision effectively walled off underprivileged students in many American cities, condemning them to a system of racial and class segregation and destroying their chances of obtaining a decent education. In Hope and Despair in the American City , Gerald Grant compares two cities--his hometown of Syracuse, New York, and Raleigh, North Carolina--in order to examine the consequences of the nation's ongoing educational inequities. The school system in Syracuse is a slough of despair, the one in Raleigh a beacon of hope. Grant argues that the chief reason for Raleigh's educational success is the integration by social class that occurred when the city voluntarily merged with the surrounding suburbs in 1976 to create the Wake County Public School System. By contrast, the primary cause of Syracuse's decline has been the growing class and racial segregation of its metropolitan schools, which has left the city mired in poverty. Hope and Despair in the American City is a compelling study of urban social policy that combines field research and historical narrative in lucid and engaging prose. The result is an ambitious portrait--sometimes disturbing, often inspiring--of two cities that exemplify our nation's greatest educational challenges, as well as a passionate exploration of the potential for school reform that exists for our urban schools today.

Hope and Despair in the American City : Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh, Used [Paperback]

3. The School That Refused to Die: Continuity and Change at Thomas Jefferson High School [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. This book chronicles the life of Thomas Jefferson High School in Richard, Virginia. From its opening in 1930, Tee-Jay, as it came to be known, developed a culture of academic excellence that eventually led observers to consider it one of the finest high schools in the South, if not the entire nation. The history of Tee-Jay, in the final analysis, is a record both of stability and change.

The School That Refused to Die : Continuity and Change at Thomas Jefferson High School, Used [Paperback]

4. Teach Me! : Kids Will Learn When Oppression Is the Lesson [Hardcover - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. "Written with warmth, humor, and extraordinary insight, Teach Me is a book that will change the way teachers think." --Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of No Ordinary Time and Wait Till Next Year "Murray Levin starts with a brilliant idea-to probe the political and social thought of African-American and Latino teenagers who are not supposed to have such thoughts-and fulfills it. The result is totally compelling, an education for the reader. Teach Me is an original." --Howard Zinn, Author of A People's History of the United States Teach Me is an account of a seasoned educator's experience in an urban high school. A book that confronts "social decay, . . . the malignancy of our time," Teach Me also describes a remarkable collaboration between a teacher and his students, who came to recognize together that the world needs to change.

Teach Me! : Kids Will Learn When Oppression Is the Lesson, Used [Hardcover]

5. Community Organizing for Urban School Reform [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. Observers of all political persuasions agree that our urban schools are in a state of crisis. Yet most efforts at school reform treat schools as isolated institutions, disconnected from the communities in which they are embedded and insulated from the political realities which surround them. Community Organizing for Urban School Reform tells the story of a radically different approach to educational change. Using a case study approach, Dennis Shirley describes how working-class parents, public school teachers, clergy, social workers, business partners, and a host of other engaged citizens have worked to improve education in inner-city schools. Their combined efforts are linked through the community organizations of the Industrial Areas Foundation, which have developed a network of over seventy "Alliance Schools" in poor and working-class neighborhoods throughout Texas. This deeply democratic struggle for school reform contains important lessons for all of the nation's urban areas. It provides a striking point of contrast to orthodox models of change and places the political empowerment of low-income parents at the heart of genuine school improvement and civic renewal.

Community Organizing for Urban School Reform, Used [Paperback]

6. Three to Get Ready : The Education of a White Family in Inner City Schools, Used [Paperback]

How do our schools take bright, active, ordinary children, who happen to be poor and black, and turn them into ill-educated and violent delinquents? Lois Stalvey's book will show you how it is done. In 1962, the Stalveys, a middle-class white family, moved from Omaha to an integrated urban neighborhood in Philadelphia, where the three children enrolled in public schools. For twelve years, Lois Stalvey watched her children and their predominantly African American classmates as both a parent and a volunteer teacher. What she saw was shocking. When her own children misbehaved or had learning problems, they were granted patience and understanding. In contrast, African American children were treated, by both black and white teachers, as naughty, dangerous, obstinate, or stupid. Though more than twenty years have passed since the first publication of this book, the tragedy is that the message Lois Stalvey shares with her readers can only be more important today. "Why bother moving children's bodies around to achieve integrated education," she asks, "if, like the children in our school, they cannot escape teachers with segregating eyes?"

Three to Get Ready : The Education of a White Family in Inner City Schools, Used [Paperback]

7. Embracing Risk in Urban Education: Curiosity, Creativity, and Courage in the Era of No Excuses and Relay Race Reform [Hardcover - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. At a time when American urban public education is under broad attack, and in which America is perceived as a nation at risk that is losing the race to the top, educators and politicians from across the spectrum are promoting increased emphasis on standardized testing, business models of school reform, zero tolerance, no excuses, promoting cultural assimilation, and building a standardized curriculum. Ginsberg argues that in the effort to reduce the achievement gap and mitigate the pejorative label of "at-risk," we are in danger of eliminating risk from education entirely. This is especially the case in urban schools with large numbers of poor and minority students. Ginsberg explores alternative approaches to student achievement at four dynamic Philadelphia public schools. This book provides a grounded, close look at alternative and innovative pedagogies which embrace risk through an emphasis on critical inquiry, cultural diversity, global awareness, project-based learning, collaboration, community partnerships, and student activism. The result? Schools which can nurture a new generation of students who are not only smart and literate but can think help preserve American Democracy while furthering the quest for peace, unity, equity, and social justice.

Embracing Risk in Urban Education : Curiosity, Creativity, and Courage in the Era of No Excuses and Relay Race Reform, Used [Hardcover]

8. Teaching Practices from America's Best Urban Schools: A Guide for School and Classroom Leaders [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. Discover the teaching practices that make the biggest difference in student performance This practical, research-based book gives principals, teachers, and school administrators a direct, inside look at instructional practices from top award-winning urban schools. The authors provide detailed examples and analyses of these practices, and successfully demystify the achievement of these schools. They offer practical guides to help educators apply these successful practices in their own schools. Teaching Practices from America's Best Urban Schools will be a valuable tool for any educator in both urban and non-urban schools-schools that serve diverse student populations, including English language learners and children from low-income families.

Teaching Practices from America's Best Urban Schools : A Guide for School and Classroom Leaders, Used [Paperback]

9. Diversity and the New Teacher: Learning from Experience in Urban Schools [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. In this extraordinary volume, veteran teacher educator and internationally respected scholar Catherine Cornbleth examines one of the most challenging issues for new teachers--how to effectively teach a diverse student population. Cornbleth weaves the voices and experiences of student teachers from urban elementary and high schools into her own analysis. She invites new and prospective teachers (especially white teachers from middle-class homes) to draw on these experiences to explore working more constructively with students different from themselves, and to succeed in schools different than their own. She also speaks to teacher educators about their role in preparing new teachers to face increasing diversity in public schools. Featuring vignettes and interviews, this book: Offers in-depth descriptions of the issues white student teachers confront as they teach in urban settings. Provides insight and advice to help strengthen relationships between racially, socioeconomically, and culturally dissimilar students and teachers. Examines the successes and failures teachers experience when engaging diverse groups of students in meaningful academic learning.

Diversity and the New Teacher: Learning from Experience in Urban Schools [Paperback - Used]

10. Serving Our Children: Charter Schools and the Reform of American Public Education (Capital Currents), Used [Hardcover]

Public education is failing America's children--especially those in poor urban areas. D.C. Council member Kevin Chavous has long been an outspoken advocate for educational reform that serves the needs of all of our children. In Serving Our Children, Mr. Chavous, who has been at the forefront of the charter school movement, explores what his city has learned from the charter school experience and what it means to American public education as a whole. In just five short years, under Mr. Chavous's leadership, charter schools in Washington went from zero to nearly forty and currently enroll about 11,000 students in six schools. These schools provide more than traditional public schools can--wrap around services to poor children who are hungry, inadequately clothed, lacking sleep, and sometimes exposed to physical and emotional violence. Mr. Chavous uses D.C.'s charter schools to demonstrate how their greater flexibility and autonomy allows them to better serve the social, economic, language, and educational needs of students and their families--services these children need to succeed in school. He admits that charter schools are not without their critics and explains why, but he argues that these schools are an important model for the educational reform that must take place if our children are to carry America into a brighter future.

Serving Our Children : Charter Schools and the Reform of American Public Education, Used [Hardcover]