Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 274
Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-4758-1975-5 • Hardback • December 2015 • $76.00 • (£58.00)
978-1-4758-1976-2 • Paperback • December 2015 • $39.00 • (£30.00)
978-1-4758-1977-9 • eBook • December 2015 • $37.00 • (£30.00)
Michael J. Petrilli is an award-winning writer and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, one of the country's leading education-policy think tanks. He is the author of The Diverse Schools Dilemma: A Parent's Guide to Socioeconomically Mixed Public Schools, and co-editor of Knowledge at the Core: Don Hirsch, Core Knowledge, and the Future of the Common Core.
Introduction
Part I: Transcending Poverty through Education, Work, and Personal Responsibility
Chapter 1: “Education and the ‘Success Sequence,’” Ron Haskins
Chapter 2: “Big Payoff, Low Probability: Postsecondary Education and Economic Mobility in
America,” Andrew Kelly
Chapter 3: “The Certification Revolution,” Tamar Jacoby
Chapter 4: “How Apprenticeship Can Spur Upward Mobility in the United States,” Robert Lerman
Part II: Multiple Pathways in High School: Tracking Revisited?
Chapter 5: “Small High Schools of Choice,” Peter Meyer
Chapter 6: “College Prep High Schools for the Poor,” Joanne Jacobs
Chapter 7: “High Quality Career and Technical Education,” Robert Schwartz and Nancy Hoffman
Part III: The Early Years
Chapter 8: “Starting at Five is Too Late: Early Childhood Education and Upward Mobility,” Elliot Regenstein, Bryce Marable, and Jelene Britten
Chapter 9: “Poverty-Fighting Elementary Schools: Knowledge Acquisition is Job One,” Robert Pondiscio
Chapter 10: “Tracking in Middle School,” Tom Loveless
Conclusion
In Education for Upward Mobility, Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, assembles a team of contributors to tackle how we can help children born into poverty transcend their disadvantages. . . .Fortunately, the contributors review real and workable strategies to overcome these barriers. You may not agree with all the proposed solutions or models examined in this book, but you will be inspired by the great work being done to address the challenge.
— School Administrator
With this provocative volume, Mike Petrilli has rendered a real service. He and his contributors offer much-needed straight talk on what it means to promote educational opportunity and upward mobility. Whether one agrees with Petrilli’s recommendations or not, this timely volume is a valuable resource for policymakers, educators, and everyone else.
— Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute
It's an outrage that so many of our poorest children, particularly our poorest children of color will also face poverty as adults. A high quality education is not the only solution to this moral failure, but it can be a big part of improving the lives of individual children and hopefully THEIR families. This book gives people who are trying to reform education many concrete ideas for helping the children who need help the most have a fighting chance to change their life chances in America today.
— Howard Fuller, PhD, distinguished professor of education, director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning, Marquette University