“Robert Pondiscio is one of the country’s most knowledgeable education writers...I don’t know how he did it with such an explosive topic, but his resulting book is a work of genius. It is revealing, moving and fair. ”
An inside look at America's most controversial charter schools, and the moral and political questions around public education and school choice.
The promise of public education is excellence for all. But that promise has seldom been kept for low-income children of color in America. In How the Other Half Learns, teacher and education journalist Robert Pondiscio focuses on Success Academy, the network of controversial charter schools in New York City founded by Eva Moskowitz, who has created something unprecedented in American education: a way for large numbers of engaged and ambitious low-income families of color to get an education for their children that equals and even exceeds what wealthy families take for granted. Her results are astonishing, her methods unorthodox.
Decades of well-intended efforts to improve our schools and close the "achievement gap" have set equity and excellence at war with each other: If you are wealthy, with the means to pay private school tuition or move to an affluent community, you can get your child into an excellent school. But if you are poor and black or brown, you have to settle for "equity" and a lecture--about fairness. About the need to be patient. And about how school choice for you only damages public schools for everyone else. Thousands of parents have chosen Success Academy, and thousands more sit on waiting lists to get in. But Moskowitz herself admits Success Academy "is not for everyone," and this raises uncomfortable questions we'd rather not ask, let alone answer: What if the price of giving a first-rate education to children least likely to receive it means acknowledging that you can't do it for everyone? What if some problems are just too hard for schools alone to solve?
At: Amazon | Apple | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
More Reviews
“Do not miss this fusion of a masterful writer and one of the most interesting leaders in education today. Pondiscio observes, respects, and illuminates the real work that teachers, students and parents do every day.”
—David Coleman, CEO of the College Board
“Robert Pondiscio is one of our nation’s most astute observers of K-12 education. In this engaging, wise, and enormously well reported book, he trains his penetrating eye on Success Academy, the highest performing charter network in America. Having spent a year at one of the schools, he methodically unpacks the ‘magic’ that makes Success so successful, while not shying away from legitimate criticism. The result is both compelling and illuminating.”
—Joel Klein, former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education; author of Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools
“Almost everyone in education holds preconceptions about Success Academy. They’re creaming the brightest students from neighboring schools; they’re a test prep factory. Or, alternatively, they are a silver bullet, the answer to educational inequity. Enter Robert Pondiscio, a nuanced observer who spent a year inside the schools with the simple intention to learn more. The resulting book is honest, balanced, and thought-provoking, one that challenges every assumption—about Success Academies and our educational system as a whole. There are few simple labels and easy answers, only difficult questions about what families without privilege deserve and get from the system of schools that serves them. The book will challenge you no matter where you think you stand.”
—Doug Lemov, Managing Director, Uncommon Schools
“Robert Pondiscio is a teacher, longtime education writer, and advocate for the kids who get overlooked, underfunded, and forgotten. In How the Other Half Learns, he brings an incredibly deep understanding of education history, policy, and theory to one year of respectful yet critical observation of Success Academy. I was surprised, entertained, and challenged by this book. How the Other Half Learns is essential reading for anyone dedicated to the business, craft, and avocation of education.”
—Jessica Lahey, teacher and author of the New York Times bestselling The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed
"Engrossing, challenging, and wise, this book will change how you think about schooling and poverty."
—Daniel T. Willingham, professor of psychology, University of Virginia; author of Why Don't Students Like School?
“A moving and dramatic story and a minute-by-minute account of how a school actually lives. In a field dominated by dry-as-bones analyses, this is an up close look at education as lived by real, flesh and blood students, with names, written by a dedicated teacher. It is arresting, informative, and compelling. A school succeeds or fails by its ethos, and reading this book qualifies as an extended visit into the inner workings of that ethos in schools that are succeeding against the odds.”
—William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education; author of The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories