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| Author: Donna Foote
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $15.18
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 5513
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.8 x 6.7 x 1.3
ISBN: 0307265714
Dewey Decimal Number: 371.100979494
EAN: 9780307265715
ASIN: 0307265714
Publication Date: April 15, 2008
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Shipping: International shipping available
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-10 of 10 | | « PREV | | |
 The Myth of the Hero Teacher April 29, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The Hero Teacher Story is an important American myth, known through such movies as "To Sir With Love", "Stand and Deliver", "The Hobarth Shakespearians" and "The Ron Howard Story". Like all good myths, they are used by different people to prop up different ideologies; often it is used to support a claim that poorly performing schools are not caused by a lack of money, just by a lack of expectations. Thus we should not be tempted fix the problems by "throwing money at the school districts which will just waste it like they have wasted all we have given them in the past".
A more reasonable interpretation may be that an excellent teacher with strong motivation can sometimes (often?) achieve what seems like miraculous results in a surprisingly short time with an almost superhuman work effort under even the worst of circumstances. But absent a systemic change, these results will probably only last for as long as the hero keeps up the superhuman effort. After he or she gives up, and leaves the field to "ordinary" successors, the disaster returns to the status quo ante. Thus, American urban schools have often turned into permanent disaster areas.
Thus, the must can promote both hope and hopelessness:
- on one hand, there is hope for a solution *IF* we can attract more of the very best teachers to address the problem
- on the other hand, this seems unlikely. The people that make extraordinary teachers tend to be all-around competent, intelligent, hardworking people with charismatic leadership abilities. Why would these people, who would be an asset to *any* organization, and who are often well recognized and given many well-paying job offers right out of college *EVER* take an underpaid job in what looks like a war-zone and work themselves half to death in a place that gives them no respect, where their supervisors give them no help (often directly sabotaging them) with a high risk of failure and give up their guaranteed career opportunities to go on this death march?
There are pockets of excellence dispersed throughout the often dismal American "system" of public education, but we should not be surprised that they occur far more often in the comfortable suburban neighborhoods than in the inner city or on the Indian reservations.
There the problem sat until Wendy Kopp's senior year at Princeton University, where she wrote a thesis proposing a radical experiment:
Bribe a few hundred of the most promising university graduates to take on this challenge and give them all the support you can. Amazingly, she got funding to try this experiment, now called Teach For America (TFA). It has been operating for 17 years, and the new book "Relentless Pursuit" is the story of 4 of its teachers, assigned to Locke High School in Watts, Los Angeles from 2005 to 2007.
The Atlantic Magazine has written about TFA from time to time, and my daughter Katherine wants to apply when she graduates.
I heard about the book on NPR's Fresh Air, and ordered it the next day. When it arrived from Amazon I could not put it down. One of the young teachers in the book, Taylor Rifkin, is from Santa Barbara (where I live), and as I read about her challenges and triumphs, I kept seeing my own daughter, and I wanted to know how the story ends.
Applying to Teach For America has become very popular among seniors at some of America's elite colleges. In its first year, TFA placed only 500 teachers. In 2007, the organization received applications from "11 percent of the senior classes at Amherst and Spelman; 10 percent of those at University of Chicago and Duke; and more than eight percent of the graduating seniors at Notre Dame, Princeton and Wellesley." Close to 18,000 individuals applied for an incoming corps of 2,900.
So how *does* the story end? Given that these kids are thrown into battle at schools that have a very hard time finding *anyone* to hire, and where most of the teachers they do hire often defect to better schools at the first opportunity, it is testament to an extremely effective selection policy that almost all of them serve out their two year commitment, and about a third of them stay for a third year at the same school. Despite their lack of experience - or maybe *because* they do not know that the job they are doing is basically impossible - they do very well; almost as well as the average teacher. And those TFA'ers that stay with teaching
have gone on to become leaders in education reform in such movements as KIPP and Green Dot.
Next on my reading list is another book about TFA called "Lessons to Learn".
Relentless Pursuit April 19, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Donna Foote is my aunt, with that said you may want to take my review with a grain of salt. However, in the spirit of full disclosure, I had reservations regarding how successful she would be in writing a readable book about the intricacies of our public education system. It has been tried before and in my opinion, tried unsuccessfully as stacks of education books sit on my bookshelf read only partially through. When I picked up Relentless Pursuit a few weeks ago, I could not put it down despite the fact I am in my first year of law school and have no business reading pleasure books. I am all too familiar with the daily life of an urban public school teacher. I am a 2002 Teach For America corps member who after TFA taught at Philadelphia public schools and two KIPP public charter schools. What Donna has done in this book is brought to life, for even the furthest removed individual from public education, the gross inadequacies of our public school system by allowing the reader to feel as if they were a student sitting in the back of a Locke High School classroom trying to engage in a lesson while the teacher attempts to engage back simultaneously trying to stop another student quietly urinating in the corner. Perhaps on a brighter note, Donna was able to show that even through the heart wrenching stories of students simply not getting the education they deserve, there is hope. It is my hope that everyone, not only those intimately involved in education, reads this book and sees it as a call for action to bring about actual change in our public schools, a change so desperately needed to ensure that every child gets the education they deserve.
Outstanding! April 17, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Outstanding book! Couldn't put it down! "Relentless Pursuit" combines an intelligent analysis of the most important issue of our day -- the educational achievement gap that exists in America -- with an engrossing narrative of four Teach For America corps members in their first year teaching. After reading this book, you come away with a profound appreciation for teaching as a profession -- its triumphs and heartaches -- and the dedication it requires. You also realize that this is an issue that can no longer be ignored if we are to remain competitive on the world stage. The four CMs portrayed are fascinating, sympathetic individuals who undergo a baptism of fire as they transition from leafy, ivied undergraduate schools to a gritty, urban, underperforming high school. Think "Friends" meets "Stand and Deliver." It's the type of school where a student doesn't show up one morning because she was stabbed to death by her sister -- with a pair of scissors -- and the daily school routine doesn't miss a beat. The four CMs portrayed meet the challenges with grace, perseverance, and an overarching love for their students that is inspiring and will bring a tear to your eye. Look for everyone reading this book on the beach this summer.
An important book about education April 17, 2008
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
With the opening disclaimer that author Donna Foote is a friend, I want to say I believe this is a well-written and important book about the difficult task educators face. The book has the page-turner momentum of a John Grisham novel and will open the eyes of those who have never ventured inside a stark urban high school. In addition to providing a fascinating history of Teach for America, Donna offers up a compelling recap of education and race relations in Los Angeles, told from within the walls of Locke High School, one of the most challenged schools in America. This is must reading for educators, parents and government officials.
A compelling read that will keep you interested until the end! April 17, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
As a young teacher in an inner city school district, I found this book informative, accurate, and extremely compelling. The book precisely portrays the conditions of inner city schools and the difficulties that the students, as well as the teachers, face. The author, Donna Foote, weaves together an incredible story of four inner city school teachers with factual and informative details about our educational system as a whole. A book I picked up and couldn't put down until the end, I would recommend this book to any reader!
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