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    A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn't in Providing an Excellent Education for All
    A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn't in Providing an Excellent Education for All
    A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn't in Providing an Excellent Education for All
    Audiobook6 hours

    A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn't in Providing an Excellent Education for All

    Written by Wendy Kopp and Steven Farr

    Narrated by Kate Mulligan

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    As “the stunningly successful nonprofit organization, Teach For America” (New York Times) celebrates its 20th anniversary, its founder Wendy Kopp issues a passionate and inspiring summation of what she and TFA corps members have learned: that educational inequity-the achievement gap-is a solvable problem, and that the key to solving it-in a single classroom, a school, or system-wide-is leadership. For twenty years, Teach for America has been working to end educational inequity, sending some of our nation's most promising college graduates to teach in some of our nation's most under-resourced communities. TFA and its corps members know from experience that the contributing causes of the achievement gap-dysfunctional inner-city and rural economies, poor healthcare, broken families, among others-are daunting. But they have also come to the exciting realization that educational inequity is a solvable problem. Highly effective teachers are achieving transformational progress in their classrooms despite the obstacles; and the skills and strategies that make them highly effective are specific and identifiable.In this inspiring, optimistic book, TFA's founder and president Wendy Kopp shows concretely that the achievement gap can be closed, and delineates what it will take to close it. Through stories from classrooms and schools across America, she distills the key lessons TFA has learned from the experiences of 24,000 corps members. The heroism and hard work of an individual teacher can transform a child's life. But to transform the educational experience and opportunities of all America's children, and to ramp up the pace of change, individual teachers should be supported by schools, school systems, and policies dedicated to nurturing, fostering, and spreading their efforts.America's failure to educate millions of its children to enable them to fulfill their potential has always been an injustice. Given the challenges we face in a competitive global economy, it has also become a national crisis. This clarifying and passionate book is must reading for anyone involved in or concerned about education-as a teacher, student, administrator, policymaker, community activist, or parent.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateJan 25, 2011
    ISBN9781611743937
    A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn't in Providing an Excellent Education for All

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    Reviews for A Chance to Make History

    3/5

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    • 3/5
      I won the audio version thru Library Thing. It took mr awhile to listen to it and I am not in the teaching field and really did not get a whole lot out of this audio. Maybe I need to stick to print copies.
    • 1/5
      Inspirational informative and a clarion call for continual improvement for education for all children in America.
    • 3/5
      My opinion of this book is rather neutral. As a teacher I was hoping that this book would be able to help give me ideas about what I could do differently in the classroom, but unfortunately it seemed more of just a celebration of the successes of Teach For America. While it is wonderful that the program has done so wonderfully and helped so many students, the book didn't help me at all. I was hoping to be inspired and get ideas on what I can do, but instead it was more of a history and pat on the back for those mentioned than something to help change the future for more students.As an audiobook I did NOT enjoy the narrator. She was boring and hard to listen to at times. Some of the pronunciations were hard to decipher, as well.
    • 4/5
      In many ways, this book was hard to classify. It is partly historical - with it's concentration on the founding and progress of Teach for America, partly memoir - with Kopp reflecting on her experiences within the educational system including good examples of teachers and systems that have defied the odds and made a difference, and partly instructive non-fiction - with certain chapters outlined in the manner of a "how to" manual on reformative education. Even though it got a bit repetitive towards the end (yes, we get it, people are the most important part of the system), it was never dry, it kept my attention, and Kopp certainly proved (and reinforced) her thesis in a manner that made it seem both reasonable and inspirational - a hard mix to obtain in a non-fiction text. In addition, the audiobook was narrated well. It gave some life to a text that might have been tough to pursue in another format.
    • 3/5
      This book was surprisingly better than anticipated. I was expecting the same dry run through of Teach for America as an organization full of history and public relations lines. Instead, I got an insightful and complication look at the current state of education affairs that was more inquisitive than prescriptive. Whatever you think of the author and organization, it is a testament to some of the amazing things happening in the education profession. As for the audio edition itself, the reader was not all that great. Her efforts to lower her voice when reading male quotes was particularly grating. As with most audiobooks, however, eventually you get used to it and can drown it out.
    • 4/5
      This book wavers between memoir of the first 20 years of Teach for America and a call to action to change the education system in the United States. I have heard of Teach for America before but didn't know much about it so those sections of the book were very interesting. The author gives several examples of "transformational teaching" in mostly poor communities. She highlights the problems we have by comparing these transformational teachers with everyday teachers. What makes someone a "transformational teacher" and how can we find more of them? I thought that the author had some good ideas and found it refreshing that she didn't have an obvious political ax to grind. Her goal: give each child the best education possible. I found myself thinking about my struggling teenager. He definitely does not have a transformational teacher in his classroom now as described in the book. These "transformational teachers" work crazy hours on nights, weekends and over the summer to get kids caught up. How are we going to find thousands of teachers willing to do this? Unfortunately, the book doesn't provide that answer but the author hopes that a large expansion of Teach for America will help.
    • 3/5
      Wendy Kopp's book A Chance to Make History looks at modern education reform. In her writing she profiles several teacher and writes about what makes them exceptional at their jobs. The book is not a "how to" guide on becoming a better teacher nor does it fall into the education reform manual category or inspirational. It falls into the hybrid memoir-some parts inspiring, some parts call to action book.