Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools-- And Winning: Lessons from Houston [Paperback]

Donald R. McAdams (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0807738840 | ISBN-13: 978-0807738849 | Publication Date: February 1, 2000

An account of the reform of a major American urban school district, this text focuses on the battles over power, jobs, contracts, taxes and race.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Don McAdams is currently a Research Professor at and Director of the Center for Reform of School Systems, University of Houston, and is also serving his third four-year term as a member of the Houston Independent School District Board of Education.

Product Details

• Paperback: 293 pages
• Publisher: Teachers College Press (February 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807738840
• ISBN-13: 978-0807738849
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #687,881 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Top-down elitism masquerading as democratic consensus, July 9, 2002

By 

Gary L Yokie (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools...and Winning!: Lessons from Houston (Hardcover)

Former school board member McAdams has delivered a revealing account (if you read copiously between the lines) of the exercise of power in a billion-dollar school district. Characterizing himself and the Anglophile majority on the school board as education reformers, he paints an over-flattering self-portrait of an enlightened education savior. All who disagree with incessant standardized testing, wholesale privatization of school system functions, dilution of employee rights, and rolling back affirmative action assume the role, in his little universe, of narrowly focused obstructionists opposed to his vision of "progress." Minority board members are either marginalized either as benign, quaint, almost comic figures or as irrationally strident defenders of his imagined status quo. He views unions and other employee organizations as hysterical pyramid schemes whose sole aim is to increase membership by scaring teachers and support personnel. This education expert must have been absent during several American history classes dealing with the labor movement. The deification of Rod Paige as public-school messiah is a mystery to many Houstonians who are still trying to distill substance from the "Rod Paige miracle." Co-opting Black criticism by selecting a conservative Republican from their midst did seem to inoculate the school board against some African-American groups, but the tactic alienated Mexican-Americans and other Hispanics. The Petruzielo-Paige legacy is the PR spin machine created in the Houston school district. Schools celebrated testing achievement with pep rallies, trinkets and candy, even if the results were improvements within a random statistical variation. McAdams shows himself to be a cheerleader for so-called reform which lines the pockets of consultants, corporations, and senior adminstrators while slowly bankrupting the public-school infrastructure and treating students merely as a target market. This is a must-read, since it unintentionally shows the hand of the vampires at the top of the heap who are sucking the lifeblood from our urban school systems and insuring a permanent underclass.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pathbreaking Account About Houston & Rod Paige, February 1, 2001

By 

Douglas J. Ford (Solano County, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools-- And Winning: Lessons from Houston (Paperback)

McAdams, Donald R., Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools... and Winning! Lessons From Houston. New York, NY: Teachers College Press (2000).

This is such a pathbreaking book that it is essential reading for school board members and others who are concerned about the sad condition of our system of education. It is notable for at least three reasons. First, it is a detailed descriptive account written by an active school board member and one of a team of leaders in the very significant education reform effort that started in Houston in 1990 and is ongoing. Second, one of McAdams' close associates in reforming the Houston school system, Dr. Rod Paige, has now been sworn in as Secretary of Education in President George W. Bush's cabinet. Third, after Dr. Paige had served as a member of the school board for over four years, his fellow board members decided, in a very controversial and unorthodox action, to appoint him to be superintendent of schools, even though he was not "qualified" by the existing rules of the system, and was opposed by the education bureaucracy.

That decision made in "Houston in 1994 helped start a pattern of nontraditional urban school district leadership that would include army generals (Seattle and Washington, D.C.), a county human services director (Milwaukee), a city budget director (Chicago), and a local prosecutor (San Diego). In all of these cities, and others such as New York City, reform has implied thinking outside the normal educator's box." [comment by G. Alfred Hess, Jr]

Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools is pathbreaking because it is the first detailed first-person description of the workings of a very successful reform school board by a member of that board. It reads like a spellbinding novel and describes in detail, but with tact and wisdom, the actions of a large number of players who are cited by name. The players include one superinten- dent that was fired by the board, another superintendent who accomplished some very good things but then began to ignore the policies decided on by the board and avoided a confrontation by leaving to take a position with another school district, an extremely difficult-to-work-with union leader, community and regional business leaders, various ethnic and other interest groups, legislators, state and city bureaucrats, and Governors Ann Richards and George W. Bush.

This book is probably also the best source so far available on the unusual career of Dr. Paige, who has won the respect and admiration of educational reform leaders across the country. Both Dr. Paige and Don McAdams are moderate Republicans who worked closely with Democrats and others in a non-partisan way to do what was needed for their students and for their community. Before his election to the Houston Independent School District Board of Education, Dr. Paige had been a well-known coach, professor of education, and college dean of education. Soon after being elected to the HISD board, Dr. Paige served on a board committee assigned to prepare a statement of its vision and beliefs. The board adopted the Declaration of Visions and Beliefs prepared by the committee in 1990 and has been guided by it since then even though most of the board members have been replaced by others. The never-ending process has required a great deal of effort involving working to resolve several serious conflicts, but Paige, McAdams, and their reform associates have managed to persuade newly elected members of the board who have often arrived with narrow and limited agendas to take a broader perspective and to work for the greater benefit of students and for the good of the community as a whole.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Telling how sausage is made, November 19, 2000

By 

Paul T. Hill (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools-- And Winning: Lessons from Houston (Paperback)

This is the first book to explain the complexity of school district politics and show how questions of educational quality are so often put second to adult interests. It shows how one of the biggest and most complex cities in American has actually made some -- though not enough -- improvements to its public schools. it also provides good suggestions for school board members and citizens elsewhere.