How to Walk to School: Blueprint for a Neighborhood School Renaissance

Parents living in the Chicago district served by the notoriously run-down Nettelhorst School-not necessarily failing, but with an unshakeable reputation for it-faced a too-typical dilemma: try to get their children into ultra-competitive magnet schools? Find a way to pay for private school tuition? Move to the better-served suburbs? Instead, a small group of motivated parents, including author Edelberg, decided to take a whole new approach-work with principal Kurland to turn Nettelhorst into the school they wanted. Sooner than anyone expected, they had turned the flagging institution around; chronicled here, their process for revitalizing the local school provides an inspirational blueprint for any parents determined to make the most of public education. Edelberg and Kurland offer a lot of inspirational ideas in this memoir of their work but, aside from acknowledging the distinct advantage of a parent population with extra time and finances, they provide little perspective for those working for the same goals but with fewer resources. Still, this volume is an admirable achievement that will doubtless be looked to as a model for school districts in need.