Radical Possibilities; School Reform

Radical Possibilities; Public Policy, urban education, and a new social movement.
Jean Anyon. 2005
Radical Possibilities is a well written description of several of the current crises in our nation, focusing on public education. Prof. Anyon excels at placing the public school crisis in its appropriate and complex economic context. I recommend the book to the well informed, well read reader. The book is well written and clearly organized.
The later chapters offer a hope for change including an emphasis on working with Community Based organizations.
I teach in a graduate program in Multi lingual Multicultural Education at Calif. State University-Sacramento. We have the good fortune of working with hundreds of teachers, over two thirds Latino and/or Asian. We used this book for the first time this year in a course on Advocacy and Change in Education.
The Anyon book served well along with my own book, Choosing Democracy: a Practical guide to Multicultural Education (2004)
We live in a very changing time from the era of the active Civil Rights movement. Teachers, and other educational workers, need to understand the complex interactions between social science analysis of the communities and school reform and/or school renewal. The Anyon book does this very well. She introduces important economics data in an understandable manner. In most settings readers will need assistance and further explanations of the basic economic concepts and relationships.

Duane Campbell