The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial | Susan Eaton

The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial | Susan Eaton | Compelling and Powerful

books:

The Children in Ro...

	The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial Susan Eaton Algonquin Books, 2007 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

With our nation's urban schools growing more segregated every year, Susan Eaton set out to see whether separate can ever really be equal. An award-winning journalist, Eaton spent four years at Simpson-Waverly Elementary School, an all-minority school in Hartford, Connecticut. Located in the poorest city in the wealthiest state in the nation, it is a glaring example of the great racial and economic divide found in almost every major urban center across the country.

The Children in Room E4 is the compelling story of one student, one classroom, and one indomitable teacher, Ms. Luddy. In the midst of Band-Aid reforms and hotshot super-intendents with empty promises, drug dealers and street gangs, Ms. Luddy's star student, Jeremy, and his fellow classmates face tremendous challenges both inside and outside of a school cut off from mainstream America.

Meanwhile, across town, a team of civil rights lawyers fight an intrepid battle to end the de facto segregation that beleaguers Jeremy's school and hundreds of others across America.

From inside the classroom and the courtroom, Eaton reveals the unsettling truths about an education system that leaves millions of children behind and gives voice to those who strive against overwhelming odds for a better future.

for more information click here

An Eye-Opener

Susan Eaton has produced an exceptional, deeply researched book. It's by no means without an agenda, but it's no Swiftian polemic, something to which a wealth of footnotes and references will attest.

Eaton grabs you by the wrist, pulling you through the torturous folds of the Sheff v O'Neill court case. She forces the ugly machinations of a typical large-city public school system into the fore, giving a vivid account of the harsh inequity of Connecticut schools.

Eaton makes a compelling argument against district boundaries, with their rigid, segregating forces. She tells of an entrenched system of De Facto segregation, arisen over the past fifty years, here to stay--unless, of course, the slumbering giants (our public schools) wake up to their own mistakes. They did in 1954, when Brown forced them. Perhaps they will again.

Every school district board member should keep this book on their desk.

for more information click here

Compelling and Powerful

Can separate ever be equal? Over and over again, we seem to be coming back to the same question our country has struggled with for decades. Countless court cases later, Susan Eaton describe in heart breaking detail, the inequities in the school lives of the children in room E4- a room found in every urban area in this country today.

Public education continues to fail miserably. Eaton's ability to weave the details of the court ruling and efforts by civil rights attorneys with the every day life in the classroom is stunning. Anyone who cares about education in this country today must read this book. It provides a compelling roadmap of where we've been and where we are headed if something doesn't change.

for more information click here

A new classic on the state of urban education in the U.S.

This book goes beyond simply explaining what the challenges in urban education are -- it shows where they came from. With a detailed history of the Supreme and Federal Court decisions since Brown v. Board of Education, Eaton illustrates how segregated and isolated schooling has been perpetuated and gotten worse in the last 50 years. Her analysis does it in two ways: first, by focusing closely on a high achieving Hartford class of students in their third and fourth grade years (the Micro view) and by showing how the Macro problems -- the legal history -- have enabled the complete ignoring and disempowerment of American cities.

In so doing, Eaton tells the story of Sheff v. O'Neill -- a landmark Connecticut court decision on the vastly segregated and unequal state of schooling in the Hartford area. She explains how the legal team put the case together, the data they collected, their Constitutional interpretations, and their battles to win....

If you are from Connecticut, interested in schooling or in school law, this book is perfect for you.

for more information click here

Tough look at inequity in education

Make no mistake about it. Award-winning journalist Susan Eaton has a passion for equality in education.

In her book, "The Children in Room E4," Eaton follows the teachers, students and lawyers involved in Sheff v. O'Neill, a landmark case brought against the school system of Hartford, Conn. The case highlights the stark differences between education in white urban areas and education in the inner city.

Eaton follows students in Ms. Luddy's room at Simpson-Waverly Elementary School, including Jeremy, her star pupil.

Eaton also taps into the story of the cracker-jack legal team that brought the case to court, focusing on their passion for the case.

The case, decided in favor of the plaintiffs, remains at the appellate level after 18 exhaustive years.

By telling the personal stories involved in Sheff v. O'Neill, Eaton saves the book from becoming another dry treatise on the failure of public education in poor neighborhoods.

While this book could not be classified as "light reading," it is a thoughtful and thorough look into the struggles and triumphs of inner city schools, their teachers and students.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

products you might be interested in