Description
Book SynopsisHow did a young generation of activists come together in 1990s Los Angeles to shake up the education system, creating lasting institutional change and lifting children and families across southern California?Critics claim that America's public schools remain feckless and hamstrung institutions, unable to improve even when nudged by accountability-minded politicians, market competition, or global pandemic. But if schools are so hopeless, then why did student learning climb in Los Angeles across the initial decades of the twenty-first century? In When Schools Work, Bruce Fuller details the rise of civic activists in L.A. as they emerged from the ashes of urban riots and failed efforts to desegregate schools. Based on the author's fifteen years of field work in L.A., the book reveals how this network of Latino and Black leaders, civil rights lawyers, ethnic nonprofits, and pedagogical progressives coalesced in the 1990s, staking out a third political ground and gaining distance from corpo
Trade ReviewWhen Schools Work is not a dry tome. It illumines the lives of several remarkable people who made the changes happen
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The Washington PostTable of ContentsNotes on the Vernacular
Prologue. Pluralist Politics Move Institutions
1. Civilizing Los Angeles
with Melissa Ancheta and Sarah Manchanda
2. Palace Revolt
3. Outside Agitators
with Malena Arcidiacono, Caitlin Kearns, and Joon Ho Lee
4. Organizing Pluralist Politics
with Sarah Manchanda
5. Pluralist Politics and Institutional Reform
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
