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Reviews
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The student voices in this striking book are an intervention into the adult-driven stereotypes of urban youth. The students offer stories of anger, challenge and hope. We all need to pay attention to these voices, and act on the corrective lessons they provide. —Jean Anyon, author of Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education, and A New Social Movement Our Schools Suck is a passionate, hard-hitting critique of a re-emerging hurtful and offensive discourse on the alleged “culture of failure” among youth of color. Rather than demonizing children, we need to take aim at the role that schools play in the creation and maintenance of social hierarchies. This multi-voiced account is a soulful, if poignant, re-framing of what really is an urgent, national crisis to which we must all attend. —Angela Valenzuela, author of Subtractive Schooling and Leaving Children Behind Against a degrading empiricism in which students are viewed as simply data who have no histories, emotions, desires or experiences, see [Our Schools Suck]. —Henry Giroux, author of Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability? Our Schools Suck draws attention to the unrelenting crisis in urban schools in the United States. More than fifty years after the Brown decision, our schools are still segregated and unequal. This book provides an unflinching look at that reality, and focuses our attention squarely on the economic inequities which are at the core of the failures of our educational system. —Nadine Dolby, co-editor of Youth Moves: Identities and Education in Global Perspective This book offers a clear and unmitigated analysis of the perspectives and voices of students who are trapped in schools that fail at meeting their intellectual and social needs. —Pedro A. Noguera, co-editor of Unfinished Business: Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in Our Schools Seamlessly woven throughout the text are the voices of students who “talk back” to those in power, critique their learning environments, and demonstrate their power as critical social actors. A terrific, compelling read. —Luisa Giulianetti, for the UC Berkeley Summer 2010 Reading List of recommendations for students In the tradition of Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities and Jean Anyon's Ghetto Schooling... Our Schools Suck once again illuminates the shocking and heartbreaking realities of life inside neglected urban schools and communities, but this time we hear it from the students themselves.... Although the argument is not new, the structure of this book... integrates a multitude of rich sources to make a convincing case that structural inequalities still infect our nation's segregated high schools. —Harvard Educational Review Our Schools Suck should be read by students of public policy and individuals interested in democratic theory. —Christopher Simon, Political Science Quarterly By sharing the point of view from youth, in their own words, this book goes beyond the typical sociological case study text and engages the reader, inviting an identification with the frustrations these youth are feeling in their quest for a better education and future. —"Law Library Staff Recommend..." feature, University of Minnesota Law Library blog The authors... force readers to challenge ingrained presumptions, especially regarding the American proto-myth of personal initiative and self-realization, and focus sharply on the disconnect between what academics and journalists write about young people and what those young people say for and about themselves. —Helen Zelon, City Limits Our Schools Suck is an excellent resource for anyone distressed with the "culture of failure" stereotypes commentators, administrators, and politicians have used to disrupt any meaningful intervention into the dilapidated, segregated education system. —Tolu Olorunda, The Daily Voice: Black America's Daily News Source |
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