Radical: Fighting to Put Students First - Hardcover

Rhee, Michelle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062203983 ISBN 13: 9780062203984

Publisher: Harper, 2013

In Radical, Michelle Rhee, a fearless and pioneering advocate for education reform, draws on her own life story and delivers her plan for better American schools.

Rhee’s goal is to ensure that laws, leaders, and policies are making students—not adults—our top priority, and she outlines concrete steps that will put us on a dramatically different course. Informing her critique are her extraordinary experiences in education: her years of teaching in inner-city Baltimore; her turbulent tenure as chancellor of the Washington, DC public schools; and her current role as CEO of the education nonprofit StudentsFirst. Rhee draws on dozens of compelling examples from schools she’s worked in and studied, from students who’ve left behind unspeakable home lives and thrived in the classroom to teachers whose groundbreaking methods have produced unprecedented leaps in student achievement.

An incisive and intensely personal call-to-arms, Michelle Rhee’s Radical is required reading for anyone who seeks a guide to not only the improvement of our schools, but also a brighter future for America’s children.

From the Back Cover:

The United States is known as a world leader in innovation, boasting brilliant thinkers and trendsetting companies, but that status is at grave risk. American children are well outside the top-ten international student rankings in reading, science, and math; those rankings—not to mention the nation's position of leadership on everything from the economy to the military to issues of moral authority—will continue to plummet unless we take dramatic action. Michelle Rhee, a driving force behind American education reform, is ready to make a change.

In Radical, this fearless and pioneering advocate draws on her own life story and delivers her plan for better American schools. Rhee's goal is to ensure that laws, leaders, and policies are making students—not adults—our top priority, and she outlines concrete steps that will put us on a dramatically different course. Informing her critique are her extraordinary experiences in education: her years of teaching in inner-city Baltimore; her turbulent tenure as chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public schools; and her current role as an education activist. Rhee draws on dozens of compelling examples—from schools she's worked in and studied; from students who've left behind unspeakable home lives and thrived in the classroom; from teachers whose groundbreaking methods have produced unprec­edented leaps in student achievement. The book chronicles Rhee's awakening to the potential of every child blessed with a great teacher, her rage at realizing that adults with special interests are blocking badly needed change, and her recognition that it will take a grassroots movement to break through the barriers to outstanding public schools.

An incisive and intensely personal call to arms, Michelle Rhee's Radical is required reading for anyone who seeks a guide not only to the improvement of our schools but also to a brighter future for America's children.

About the Author:

Michelle Rhee is the founder and CEO of StudentsFirst, a political advocacy organization for education reform. From 2007 to 2010, she served as chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public school system. She is also the founder of The New Teacher Project and a former Teach For America corps member. She divides her time between California, with her husband, Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, and Nashville, with her daughters, Starr and Olivia.

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0062203983
• ISBN 13: 9780062203984
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304