City Kids, City Schools - by William Ayers & Gloria Ladson-Billings & Gregory Michie (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Of the approximately 50 million public school students in the United States, more than half are in urban schools. A contemporary companion to City Kids, City Teachers: Reports from the Front Row, this new and timely collection has been compiled by four of the country's most prominent urban educators. Contributors including Sandra Cisneros, Jonathan Kozol, Sapphire, and Patricia J. Williams provide some of the best writing on life in city schools and neighborhoods. Young people and practicing teachers, poets and scholars, social critics and journalists offer unique takes on topics ranging from culturally relevant teaching and scripted curricula to the criminalization of youth, gentrification, and the inequities of school funding.

In the words of Sonia Nieto, City Kids, City Schools "challenge[s] the conventional wisdom of what it means to teach in urban schools."

Review Quotes

"Lands squarely on the streets of America where a variety of voices offers insight into schools that work." -Rudolph F. Crew, EdD, Superintendent of Miami-Date County Public Schools

"Hopeful, inspiring . . . a wonderful, provocative collection." -Bill Bigelow, Editor, Rethinking Schools magazine

About the Author

William Ayers is Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (retired). He co-edited City Kids, City Teachers; Teaching for Social Justice; Zero Tolerance; and City Kids, City Schools (all available from The New Press).

Gloria Ladson-Billings is the Kellner Family Professor of Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Gregory Michie teaches in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Illinois State University in Chicago.

Pedro Noguera is Professor of Teaching and Learning at New York University.