In the Crossfire: Marcus Foster and the Troubled History of American School Reform
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
As media reports declare crisis after crisis in public education, Americans find themselves hotly debating educational inequalities that seem to violate their nation's ideals. Why does success in school track so closely with race and socioeconomic status? How to end these apparent achievement gaps? In the Crossfire brings historical perspective to these debates by tracing the life and work of Marcus Foster, an African American educator who struggled to reform urban schools in the 1960s and early 1970s.
As a teacher, principal, and superintendent—first in his native Philadelphia and eventually in Oakland, California—Foster made success stories of urban schools and children whom others had dismissed as hopeless, only to be assassinated in 1973 by the previously unknown Symbionese Liberation Army in a bizarre protest against an allegedly racist school system. Foster's story encapsulates larger social changes in the decades after World War II: the great black migration from South to North, the civil rights movement, the decline of American cities, and the ever-increasing emphasis on education as a ticket to success. Well before the accountability agenda of the No Child Left Behind Act or the rise of charter schools, Americans came into sharp conflict over urban educational failure, with some blaming the schools and others pointing to conditions in homes and neighborhoods. By focusing on an educator who worked in the trenches and had a reputation for bridging divisions, In the Crossfire sheds new light on the continuing ideological debates over race, poverty, and achievement.
Foster charted a course between the extremes of demanding too little and expecting too much of schools as agents of opportunity in America. He called for accountability not only from educators but also from families, taxpayers, and political and economic institutions. His effort to mobilize multiple constituencies was a key to his success—and a lesson for educators and policymakers who would take aim at achievement gaps without addressing the full range of school and nonschool factors that create them.
Related to In the Crossfire
Related ebooks
In the Crossfire: Marcus Foster and the Troubled History of American School Reform Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsContentious Curricula: Afrocentrism and Creationism in American Public Schools Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Backroads Pragmatists: Mexico's Melting Pot and Civil Rights in the United States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSchooling the Movement: The Activism of Southern Black Educators from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Era Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWomen and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIntegrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTop Down: The Ford Foundation, Black Power, and the Reinvention of Racial Liberalism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Black Revolution on Campus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe School Story: Young Adult Narratives in the Age of Neoliberalism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDesegregating Texas Schools: Eisenhower, Shivers, and the Crisis at Mansfield High Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Education at War: The Fight for Students of Color in America's Public Schools Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Pragmatic Ideal: Mary Field Parton and the Pursuit of a Progressive Society Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStruggle on Their Minds: The Political Thought of African American Resistance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCivil Rights, Culture Wars: The Fight over a Mississippi Textbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn the Freedom Side: How Five Decades of Youth Activists Have Remixed American History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMere Equals: The Paradox of Educated Women in the Early American Republic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Capitalist University: The Transformations of Higher Education in the United States since 1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Autobiography of Citizenship: Assimilation and Resistance in U.S. Education Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDiversity and Its Discontents: Cultural Conflict and Common Ground in Contemporary American Society Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Flashpoints for Asian American Studies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Growing Up America: Youth and Politics since 1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA New Kind of Youth: Historically Black High Schools and Southern Student Activism, 1920–1975 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Greek-Letter Organizations 2.0: New Directions in the Study of African American Fraternities and Sororities Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Founding Fathers, Education, and "The Great Contest": The American Philosophical Society Prize of 1797 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Oppositional Culture Theory Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPublic Culture: Diversity, Democracy, and Community in the United States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
United States History For You
The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for In the Crossfire
0 ratings0 reviews