THE ENDURING PROMISE OF AMERICA'S GREAT CITY SCHOOLS

Education activist Casserly makes a case for the utility of urban public schools.

America’s “great city schools,” writes Casserly, have made measurable improvements in the last three or so decades, including increasing the graduation rate from about 65% in 1990 to about 80% in 2023, which “swelled the ranks of higher education and contributed substantially to the nation’s economy.” Many schools have exceeded the expected outcomes in mathematics, reading, and other academic areas. For all that, as Casserly observes, urban schools have faced tremendous challenges: the pandemic forced students into isolated learning situations that relied on technology that was not always readily available to them, and under the Trump administration and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, private schools were privileged over public schools “in defiance of the Congressionally approved Title I formula.” Casserly’s appeal to such formulas speaks to his intended audience of education policymakers and advocates, but it is well taken. More accessible to general readers is Casserly’s case for better pay and support for teachers, as well as his advocacy for some of the basic tenets of “improvement science” and its reliance on “a process of continuous inquiry” to measure and spur progress. On that score, Casserly allows that not every school district is golden and that gains have been uneven, but those that have strived to raise the quality of instruction have seen across-the-board improvements. “Public support for its schools is fragile,” Casserly notes, and raising confidence as well as standards must be an ongoing commitment. In that spirit, he delivers a persuasive argument for supporting public education against its many discontents, always with an eye on what’s best for the children being served.

Of most interest to fellow education activists, but with plenty of useful rebuttals to the anti–public school crowd.