How Schools Work

An Inside Account of Failure and Success from One of the Nation's Longest-Serving Secretaries of Education

Arne Duncan

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781501173073
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Policy

"This book merits every American's serious consideration" (Vice President Joe Biden): from the Secretary of Education under President Obama, an exposé of the status quo that helps maintain a broken system at the expense of our kids' education, and threatens our nation's future. "Education runs on lies. That's probably not what you'd expect from a former Secretary of Education, but it's the truth." So opens Arne Duncan's How Schools Work, although the title could just as easily be How American Schools Work for Some, Not for Others, and Only Now and Then for Kids. Drawing on nearly three decades in education—from his mother's after-school program on Chicago's South Side to his tenure as Secretary of Education in Washington, DC— How Schools Work follows Arne (as he insists you call him) as he takes on challenges at every turn: gangbangers in Chicago housing projects, parents who call him racist, teachers who insist they can't help poor kids, unions that refuse to modernize, Tea Partiers who call him an autocrat, affluent white progressive moms who hate yearly tests, and even the NRA, which once labeled Arne the "most extreme anti-gun member of President Obama's Cabinet." Going to a child's funeral every couple of weeks, as he did when he worked in Chicago, will do that to a person. How Schools Work exposes the lies that have caused American kids to fall behind their international peers, from early childhood all the way to college graduation rates. But it also identifies what really does make a school work."As insightful as it is inspiring" ( Washington Book Review ), How Schools Work will embolden parents, teachers, voters, and even students to demand more of our public schools. If America is going to be great, then we can accept nothing less.

INDEX

A note about the index: The pages referenced in this index refer to the page numbers in the print edition. Clicking on a page number will take you to the ebook location that corresponds to the beginning of that page in the print edition. For a comprehensive list of locations of any word or phrase, use your reading system’s search function.

Page numbers in italics refer to graphs and charts.

Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL), 159, 176, 205–6, 209, 211–12

accountability:

algorithm for, 54–58

for bad schools, 43

for CPS, 19, 210

lessons of, 160

of teachers, see teacher accountability

Achieve, Inc., 141

ACT:

evaluation of scores on, 69–76

prep for, 3, 6, 8–12, 78

scoring graph for ISAT and, 72

standards of, 81

active shooter drills, 189, 192, 199

Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), 134–35, 144

African Americans:

in Chicago neighborhoods, 28–29

childhood hardships of, 164–65

educational achievement gap of, 13, 59, 70, 86

educational advances of, 218

family structure of, 3–4

inspirational figures for, 8

middle-class, 181

poverty of, 5, 23, 28, 120, 164–65

success story of, 164–67

see also specific individuals

After School Matters, 34–39, 41, 212–13

after-school programs:

budget of, 87

value of, 1–4, 34–39, 56, 59, 79, 212–13, 217

Agriculture Department, U.S., budget of, 89

airline travel, 111–13

AK-47, 181, 182

Alaska, 125

alcohol abuse, 24

Alexander, Lamar, 145

American Dream, 115–16

American Federation of Teachers (AFT), 93

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009), 95

America’s 1st Freedom, 179

Ariel Community Academy, 26,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Lies, Lies Everywhere
• If We Build it, they Will Come
• “The Number is Zero-Point-Two.”
• The Consortium
• “We Need the Carrot.”
• One Blue, One Red
• Strange Bedfellows
• Twenty-Five Pounds of Apples and Three Pounds of Cheese
• “We Matter!”
• How Schools Work
• About the Author
• Appendix
• Index
• Copyright