Possible Lives: The Promise of Public Education

Rose (Lives on the Boundary) spent four years crisscrossing the U.S. to sit in on public school classrooms in New York, Baltimore, Chicago and Los Angeles, from the Mississippi Delta to Kentucky's coal district to the bicultural California city of Calexico on the Mexican border. In a hopeful journey through America's public school system, he emphasizes examples of inspired teaching, insight and connection, achievement against odds. The effective teachers whom he profiles through interviews, oral testimonies and reportage evinced solidarity with students' backgrounds, maintained high expectations and let students shape the direction of discussion; their classes demanded thought, participation, effort. Rose, who directs the UCLA writing program, sets these portraits of dynamic classrooms in the context of school-policy battles, community action and a legacy of systematic underfunding. Condemning the ``strange mix of apocalyptic vignettes'' that passes for public discussion about the state of American education, he offers a constructive and inspirational resource for anyone concerned about the health of public education. (Sept.)