Critical Small Schools: Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform features the most current empirical research about the successes and challenges of the small schools movement and the implications of such for urban public educational policy. Situated in a climate of hierarchical reform, many of the principles of the original small schools movement——which are rooted in community participation, innovative pedagogies and assessment, and equity and social justice——have become obscured by an educational agenda that emphasizes top-down mandates and standards-based reform. With the increased popularity and the rapid proliferation of small schools, the emphasis on ‘‘size only’’ has resulted in a bifurcation of the small schools movement; on one end are the small schools which have embraced the democratic, participatory, and self-governing nature of the original movement, while on the other end are schools that have simply reduced their size without rethinking school structures and practices. This book distinguishes the small schools featured and researched in this volume from schools that are simply small and labels them ““critical small schools.”” By documenting the practices that take place in various critical small schools in New York City, we show how these schools have narrowed the achievement gap and increased graduation and college acceptance rates. Although smallness is an essential feature in the design of these schools, it is certainly not the only one and this volume illuminates the other elements that contribute to these schools’’ successes and shortcomings. Critical Small Schools also challenges the recent emphasis on charter schools as a panacea for urban educational reform. By featuring research about the inner workings of public schools, this volume challenges this new direction that steers successful school development away from public education. Moreover, as every site is fraught with some tension, Critical Small Schools not only offers glimpses into intellectually vibrant and democratic learning communities, but also acknowledges that these concepts are not static and necessitate continual reflection and renewal. At this pivotal moment in educational reform, this volume provides keen insight into the challenges and possibilities of the small schools movement and is indispensable for anyone interested in comprehensive public school reform.

The Critical Turn in Education traces the historical emergence and development of critical theories in the field of education, from the introduction of Marxist and other radical social theories in the 1960s to the contemporary critical landscape. The book begins by tracing the first waves of critical scholarship in the field through a close, contextual study of the intellectual and political projects of several core figures including, Paulo Freire, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Michael Apple, and Henry Giroux. Later chapters offer a discussion of feminist critiques, the influx of postmodernist and poststructuralist ideas in education, and critical theories of race. While grounded in U.S. scholarship, The Critical Turn in Education contextualizes the development of critical ideas and political projects within a larger international history, and charts the ongoing theoretical debates that seek to explain the relationship between school and society. Today, much of the language of this critical turn has now become commonplace—words such as "hegemony," "ideology," and the term "critical" itself—but by providing a historical analysis, The Critical Turn in Education illuminates the complexity and nuance of these theoretical tools, which offer ways of understanding the intersections between individual identities and structural forces in an attempt to engage and overturn social injustice.

This book simultaneously provides multiple analyses of critical pedagogy in the twenty-first century while showcasing the scholarship of this new generation of critical scholar-educators. Needless to say, the writers herein represent just a small subset of a much larger movement for critical transformation and a more humane, less Eurocentric, less paternalistic, less homophobic, less patriarchical, less exploitative, and less violent world. This volume highlights the finding that rigorous critical pedagogical approaches to education, while still marginalized in many contexts, are being used in increasingly more classrooms for the benefit of student learning, contributing, however indirectly, to the larger struggle against the barbarism of industrial, neoliberal, militarized destructiveness. The challenge for critical pedagogy in the twenty-first century, from this point of view, includes contributing to the manifestation of a truly global critical pedagogy that is epistemologically democratic and against human suffering and capitalist exploitation. These rigorous, democratic, critical standards for measuring the value of our scholarship, including this volume of essays, should be the same that we use to critique and transform the larger society in which we live and work.

In this timely volume, acclaimed educational scholars and experts who share a critical view of the standards and testing movement, explore the major reform issues currently facing American educational institutions. The collective wisdom they provide is sound and never strays far from a consideration for the difficulty of implementing educational reforms in the face of structural and ideological limitations. Aspects of school reform such as the role states play, the results of reform efforts in the urban enclaves of New York and Boston, and the position of unions in school system reform, represent just some of the comprehensive analyses presented here. Particular attention is given to the challenges faced by new, smaller, and more independent schools. This volume is laden with balanced advice for anyone seeking to understand or inspire educational reform.

Starting Up is a collection of first-person accounts by some of the best-known founders of new schools in America. Providing the kind of knowledge that only experience can teach, it is an invaluable resource for anyone in the process of or thinking about opening a new school, as well as those interested in the politics of today’s era of new school development. The authors share how they worked to make their educational aspirations a reality while wrestling with social and economic obstacles, such as the distressed state of the communities in which these schools operated and the constant competition for resources. Starting Up tells real stories that capture the rich sense of possibility that currently exists for urban education. Book Features: Behind the scenes accounts from the founders of innovative K–12 schools created to better serve primarily poor communities across the country. Lessons learned from school leaders, including both the rewards and challenges associated with starting a new school. An introduction by Pedro Noguera that situates start ups within current economic and political realities. Lisa Arrastía is the middle school principal at United Nations International School in New York. Her work in the classroom is the focus of the Emmy-nominated PBS documentary Making the Grade. Marvin Hoffman is the founding director of The University of Chicago Charter School, North Kenwood/Oakland campus and the associate director of the University’s Urban Teacher Education Program. “These are educators who recognize that although urban public schools are often deeply flawed and dysfunctional, they don’t have to be, and they are educators who act on the belief that it is possible to create schools that nurture and support the hopes and aspirations of those they serve.” —From the Foreword by Pedro Noguera, New York University “How might we reimagine our schools? This book offers a guide from those who have experienced firsthand the trials and tribulations of trying to create a school from the bottom up. It asks all the right questions, both the practical and the pedagogical. It feels like essential reading as we reconsider how our urban schools should look and function.” —Alex Kotlowitz, bestselling author of There Are No Children Here and The Other Side of the River

This is the first book to look at school reform from the persepectives of those most affected by it - the students.