Description
Book SynopsisPresents compelling stories of African American and Latino students who attend under-resourced inner-city schools. This book highlights the dishonesty of public claims that young people do not value education.
Trade ReviewOur Schools Suck is a passionate, hard-hitting critique of a re-emerging hurtful and offensive discourse on the alleged & culture of failure among youth of color. Rather than demonizing children, we need to take aim at the role that schools play in the creation and maintenance of social hierarchies. This multi-voiced account is a soulful, if poignant, re-framing of what really is an urgent, national crisis to which we must all attend. -- Angela Valenzuela,author of Subtractive Schooling and Leaving Children Behind
Our Schools Suck offers a clear and unmitigated analysis of the perspectives and voices of students who are trapped in schools that fail at meeting their intellectual and social needs. -- Pedro A. Noguera,co-editor of Unfinished Business: Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in Our Schools
This book reminds us that there are lives and futures at stake and that young people are passionate and tenacious, despite the obstacles they face every day in our urban schools. -- Nadine Dolby,author of Constructing Race: Youth, Identity, and Popular Culture in South Africa
Our Schools Suck aims to give voice to some of the youth caught up in the maelstrom of 21st century urban education, within a critical framework of the cultural values and larger socioeconomic forces that shape the decade. * City Limits *
For anyone desperate for a fresh look into the apartheid education system, in which Black and Latino students are currently trapped. * The Daily Voice *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments; Introduction 1. Culture Trap: Talking about Young People of Color and their Education; 2. "I Hate It When People Treat Me like a Fxxx-Up": Phony Theories, Segregated Schools, and the Culture of Aspiration among African American and Latino Teenagers; 3. "They Ain't Hiring Kids from My Neighborhood": Young Men of Color Negotiating Public Schools and Poor Work Options in New York City; 4. "Where Youth Have an Actual Voice": Teenagers as Empowered Stakeholders in School Reform; 5. Conclusion: When Young People Talk Back to a Segregated Nation Methodological Appendix: Listening to Young People; Notes; Index; About the Authors
