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

I had to read this text for a college teaching course this past semester, it was a very nice read. Very inspiring for young teachers, and the author is able to tell her story in a way that leaves you wanting more, it was a page turner for me.

After hearing an interview by Ms. Kopp, I was impressed with her and ordered her book. It was everything I'd wanted and expected! This woman truly has a grip on education today, and on what it will take to improve our system. She understands all the issues and proposed "fixes", but has very common sense solutions to changing the trajectory of our children's futures. Read this book and learn from a successful master of the field! Locked Up With Success: A Prison Teacher's Guide to Closing the Achievement Gap in Any Classroom

Book arrived in 1 business day, as stated in the order summary. Book is in perfect condition. Looking forward to reading and exploring the world of Early Childhood Education. Would definitely recommend prime for ALL.

The product showed up in the condition advertised. It was in good condition with no missing pages and no damage.

Good.

My daughter is a 2010 Teach for America corp member and I wanted a perspective by the founder on her goals etc for this great program. Very informative, as an insider I don't think I learned anything new about the current programs but was interested more in the birth of her idea.

Great

The book is well organized and very helpful for my study. especially, the price of the book is quite acceptable for any student.

Kopp's 'A Chance to Make History' excited me. I have just finished my second year of teaching in the UK through the Teach First scheme (the British equivalent to Teach for America) and ever since I first stepped foot in the classroom I have been fascinated by the education system and the huge variety of success that different schools have. I saw this then, as a chance for an experienced and inspiring leader to share her insights into the key factors that establish educational excellence.In fairness, she does do this. However, the read was at times hard work and this is largely down to her enthusiasm to share largely irrelevant anecdotes and statistics from Teach for America success stories. She is rightly proud of the work that Teach for America has accomplished but I feel it does detract somewhat from the overall purpose of the book.Having said that she does establish some keys to educational success in under-privileged communities. She establishes that it is a complex issue and she laments governments of recent decades of fixating on narrow solutions - silver bullets such as smaller schools, or improved technology. Instead she takes a holistic approach that encompasses both of the above as well as longer school hours, freedom for schools to innovate, greater accountability for principals and teachers, increased teacher talent pipeline, improved leadership development, etc. She has a wealth of experience and seen inside a vast array of schools, giving her a unique viewpoint to note what works and what doesn't and there are many good ideas here that we should be excited about implementing. I was, however, left desiring slightly more detail in terms of implementation; she presses greater accountability quite strongly but then doesn't suggest what metrics to use to do this or how to overcome the problems that would naturally arise from applying this to the classroom setting.The slight silver-bullet irony is that the under-lying current running through the book is that people - and particularly leaders - are the key to educational success. From my experience, I would agree that this is the most important aspect and governments and organisations need to think carefully about how to increase the flow of exceptional leaders into the education system.This is an exciting time. If you weren't convinced before this book, you should be now: it is certainly possible to create exceptional education for the very poorest communities, and Kopp clearly demonstrates this, first on the classroom level, then at the whole school level and finally at the district level. If we can learn from our mistakes there is no reason why every child should not be provided with excellent education; an exciting proposition indeed

Wendy shares example after example of transformational change in various extremely difficult circumstances. You cannot help but become a believer. I will keep coming back to this book for inspiration.