"For readers who want a sophisticated look at one university's attempt to use research to correct flaws in educational organizations."

Library Journal

"Theoretical in practical terms, this book demonstrates the best of applied sociology to make a real impact on social life. . . . the book provides solid evidence that what can be accomplished by schools in poor neighborhoods should not be underestimated. The details are in this book, and it deserves a very wide audience."

American Journal of Sociology

"A good book presenting the design, development, and results of a five-year, intensive study of school change in two charter elementary schools in Chicago serving mainly struggling African American students. The book is well written and well organized with a preview, details, and summary for each chapter."

Contemporary Sociology

"A particularly instructive addition to this literature. . . . Studies like this should push our sense of what is possible with some disadvantaged youth when schools are expertly organized and resourced to support their student population. It also warns us against looking at instructional interventions in isolation, without considering the social, technical, and material supports for the intervention. . . . [T]his research should make it clear that schools can do something meaningful for a significant number of disadvantaged youngsters. Maybe broad statements about the impotence of schooling were plausible in the past, but they are increasingly at odds with a growing body of evidence."

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

"The Ambitious Elementary School provides a compelling model for school improvement centered on personalized instructional procedures, school-community collaboration, and greatly expanded instructional time. It also illustrates how innovation in charter schools may generate strategies that can be tested by district schools. Readers who are interested in the operations of high-performing charter schools or concerned with school improvement broadly will find much to value in the book."

EducationNext

“A great school is much more than a collection of excellent teachers laboring in their separate classrooms. This wonderfully clearheaded book describes how one school achieved success by building a highly collaborative culture and organization that supports teachers learning from one another and from evidence on every student’s progress, and it shows readers what it will take to make that success spread.”

Michael S. McPherson, coauthor of Lesson Plan: An Agenda for Change in Higher Education

“The Ambitious Elementary School is an important book. It has already affected my thinking and my work. I am a practitioner, working with public schools every day, so I come to works like these as a searcher, as someone always looking for convincing presentations of a better way forward. This book absolutely offers one. I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who believes in the mission of public education.”

Ellen Guiney, executive director emeritus, Boston Plan for Excellence