The opportunity equation : how citizen teachers are combating the achievement gap in America's schools

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Title:

The opportunity equation : how citizen teachers are combating the achievement gap in America's schools

Author:

Schwarz, Eric, 1960- author.

ISBN:

9780807033722

Physical Description:

xiv, 231 pages ; 24 cm

Subject Term:

Community and school -- United States.

Educational change -- United States -- Citizen participation.

Educational equalization -- United States.

Community power -- United States.

Social action -- United States.

Summary:

"Citizen Schools is a fresh and personal look at education and the increasingly unequal access to opportunity in America. The book gets beyond the tired debate about charter schools and unions and tests to look at what is really driving the growing opportunity gap - what Schwarz calls a chasm - between upper and lower income children. Schwarz charts the supports and experiences that marked his own childhood and that of his children and shares the story of Citizen Schools, the organization he built, and the thousands of children it serves who were born with little money and few connections but by virtue of repeated positive experiences with professionally successful adults are now catapulting their way into good colleges and good careers. While differences in school and teacher quality contribute to growing opportunity and achievement gaps, Schwarz shares stories and convincing data that demonstrate most of the gap comes from extra learning opportunities offered outside of school. Schwarz shares heartwarming as well as tragic stories and cutting edge research, describing a world in which the real driver of achievement gaps has little to do with tests or schools or even teachers, but instead has everything to do with social networks and chances to "experience success with successful people." "--

Holds:

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	370.0973 SCH	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Schwarz, founder of the groundbreaking Citizen Schools program, shares his vision for reducing inequality by pairing successful adults with low-income students.

Parental wealth now predicts adult success more than at any point in the last hundred years. And yet as debates about education rage on, and wealth-based achievement gaps grow, too many people fix the blame on one of two convenient scapegoats- poverty or our public schools. But in fact, low-income kids are learning more now than ever before. The real culprit for rising inequality, Eric Schwarz argues in The Opportunity Equation , is that wealthier kids are learning much, much more-mostly outside of school. In summer camps, robotics competitions, sessions with private tutors, and conversations around the dinner table, children from more affluent families build the skills and social networks that propel them to success.

In The Opportunity Equation , Schwarz tells the story of how he founded the pioneering Citizen Schools program to combat rising inequality by bringing these same opportunities to children who don't have access to them. By increasing learning time in schools and harnessing the power of an army of volunteers with various skills and professional backgrounds-lawyers, engineers, carpenters, journalists, nonprofit leaders, and grandmothers who sew-Citizen Schools offers after-school apprenticeships that provide the building blocks for adult success.

Recounting the triumphs and setbacks he's encountered in implementing the program, Schwarz shows that some of the nation's lowest-performing schools in its lowest-income cities can, with help, provide their students with many of the same experiences wealthy communities afford to their children. The results have been proven- in the dozen school districts, from New York to Oakland, that have partnered with Citizen Schools, rates of attendance, proficiency, graduation, and college acceptance have gone up-and the achievement gap closes.

At a time when many stakeholders in the education debates are looking for new, silver-bullet shortcuts to educational excellence, Schwarz shows that the best solution is human-centered, rooted in the American tradition of citizen voluntarism, and, most important, achievable. We can provide quality education for all students and close the opportunity gap in this country-and we can do it together.

Author Notes

Eric Schwarz is the founding CEO of Citizen Schools and is currently developing a new social enterprise in higher education. He has written and spoken widely on education and opportunity. Prior to helping launch Citizen Schools in 1995 he worked as a political organizer, a journalist, and a vice president of City Year. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with his wife and two children.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Both a practical policy primer and a memoir, Schwarz persuasively demonstrates that the so-called educational achievement gap is rooted in opportunity and resources-not willingness or ability-and proposes accessible solutions to close the gap. With a keen and forthright eye, he employs his own experience as a child born into privilege to establish that if the advantages lavished on him were available to children from all points on the economic spectrum, achievement and prospects for future accomplishments would also be weighted equally. He founded Citizen Schools in 1995 to provide volunteer tutoring and enrichment classes to low-performing public schools in the Boston area. With a growing number of partnerships with public schools, the organization continues to evolve, providing volunteer teachers and extended learning time for resource-strapped schools in several states. Combining data-rich statistics with frequently funny and animated accounts of his work with Citizen Schools, including a bracing candor about mistakes and learning on the fly, Schwarz offers an inspiring chronicle of scholarly triumphs and generous citizen activism, as well as a constructive blueprint for boosting achievement without abandoning public education. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

An inside look at the Citizen Schools program.From its inception to its current success, Schwarz gives readers a detailed history of the after-school program he founded in 1995. As a descendent of the FAO Schwarz toy store family, the author's childhood "was piled high with the building blocks of opportunity." Surrounded by high-achieving professional adults who formed a "powerful social network," success was almost guaranteed due to the extra chances to learn and grow. Soon, Schwarz realized that not everyone had the same breaks in life, so he started the Citizen Schools program to help balance the equation. He sought to expose low-income students to mentoring, sports, art, music, and creative and innovative solutions to everyday problems. By extending the school day by three hours, hiring AmeriCorps teaching fellows and asking adult volunteers to help teach a variety of skills, Schwarz was able to implement his plan. Not only do the extra three hours provide a safe haven for children who might otherwise wind up on the streets, but the time also allows parents better access to information about their children since the citizen volunteers are able to make phone calls and conduct meetings that the full-time teachers don't have time to do. Through personal stories and chronological notes, Schwarz shows the necessary steps he and his fellow workers use to implement changes in the way children are taught. He provides thorough analysis of the success he's been able to achieve, including better test results, greater high school graduation rates and increased college acceptance rates. Straightforward and informational, Schwarz's brief book is a call to action for citizens and educators so that the achievement gap can be closed as rapidly as possible.Motivational information on how ordinary citizens can make a huge difference in the American educational system. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Lawrence H. Summers

Foreword: The Imperative of Equal Opportunity and the Importance of Citizen Schools	p. ix
Introduction: The Opportunity Equation	p. 1
Section 1 Starting Citizen Schools
Chapter 1 Building Blocks	p. 18
Chapter 2 Maureen	p. 34
Chapter 3 "It's My Turn!"	p. 40
Chapter 4 Turning Point	p. 58
Chapter 5 Organization Man	p. 66
Chapter 6 The Eddy Is Ready	p. 82
Chapter 7 Scale, Spread, and the Pursuit of Systemic Change	p. 103
Section 2 How Citizen Power and an Expanded Learning Day Can Narrow Achievement Gaps, Broaden Opportunity, and Strengthen America
Voices from Citizen Schools: Joyce King Thomas, volunteer	p. 120
Chapter 8 Citizen Tower and the Importance of Mentoring	p. 124
Chapter 9 It's About Time	p. 135
Chapter 10 From a Nation of Consumers to a Nation of Makers: Inspiring Creativity and Innovative Thinking in Our Schools	p. 150
Chapter 11 Social Networks and Social Skills	p. 164
Chapter 12 Supporting Teachers, and Parents Too	p. 176
Voices from Citizen Schools: Lindy Smalt, AmeriCorps Teaching Fellow	p. 190
Section 3 Next Steps for America and for You
Chapter 13 A Civic Marshall Plan for Equal Opportunity	p. 194
Voices from Citizen Schools: Agostinha DePina, student	p. 201
Appendix: Expanded Learning Time Schedule with Citizen Schools	p. 205
Acknowledgments	p. 206
Notes	p. 209
Index	p. 221

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Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

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