The Hardest Questions Aren't on the Test: Lessons from an Innovative Urban School
reviewed by Maria Martinez-Cosio
 Title: The Hardest Questions Aren't on the Test: Lessons from an Innovative Urban School Author(s): Linda F. Nathan Publisher: Beacon Press, Boston ISBN: 0807032743, Pages: 224, Year: 2009 Search for book at Amazon.com
Elected officials and the media continue to clamor for magic formulas, prescribed models, and a clear set of instructions for turning around our troubled urban high schools. Despite NCLB sanctions and district-wide reform measures, many high schools continue to struggle to graduate students from underserved populations. Linda Nathan brings the discussion back to center, by rejecting the “cookie cutter” method of educating urban youth, and instead reaffirming an important tenet of improving education: “reform is essentially political and [that] you must know your community’s context before plunging in” (p. xxv). Thus her book rejects a formulaic approach and instead focuses on challenging teachers, administrators, and parents to ask tough questions, challenge norms, and rethink the methods used towards the acquisition of knowledge.
The setting for Nathan’s narrative is the Boston Arts Academy, a racially and ethnically diverse magnet high school with 420 students. Students must audition for a spot by performing... (preview truncated at 150 words.) Cite This Article as: Teachers College Record, 2010, p. -
http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 15899, Date Accessed: 9/10/2010 12:11:21 AM
|
