Hope Against Hope: Three Schools, One City, and the Struggle to Educate America's Children

Aiming to distill the difficulties and possibilities facing American educational reform, journalist Carr follows three people at three charter schools%E2%80%9414-year-old student Geraldlynn Stewart, idealistic young teacher Aidan Kelly, and dedicated principal Mary Laurie%E2%80%94as they navigate competing visions of education and civil rights in post-Katrina New Orleans. While the book's time period (2005%E2%80%932012) sees a general if qualified upswing in student performance, Carr still finds the city, for all its unique history, emblematic of a continuing national crisis of "decayed infrastructure, overwhelmed social services, long-simmering racial tensions, and gross inequalities." Her protagonists' perspectives capture subtleties rarely probed in a national debate more preoccupied with test scores, corporatization, and teachers' unions: discipline, gun violence, and the unmet needs of students facing a wide range of physical and mental problems. Carr, for her part, critiques the increasingly prevalent charter school system, which now serves roughly two million students, for its paternalism, unforgiving "no-excuses" approach, and rigidly college-oriented ethos. Her scholastic prescription is holistic, understanding and embracing the wider social circumstances of a child's learning process by balancing quality teaching against the self-determination and cultural values of that child's particular community. Agent: Farley Chase, Farley Literary. (Feb.)