The Opportunity Equation: How Citizen Teachers Are Combating the Achievement Gap in America's Schools

Eric Schwarz (Get this book)
Both a practical policy primer and a memoir, Schwarz persuasively demonstrates that the so-called educational achievement gap is rooted in opportunity and resources not willingness or ability and proposes accessible solutions to close the gap. With a keen and forthright eye, he employs his own experience as a child born into privilege to establish that if the advantages lavished on him were available to children from all points on the economic spectrum, achievement and prospects for future accomplishments would also be weighted equally. Schwarz offers an inspiring chronicle of scholarly triumphs and generous citizen activism, as well as a constructive blueprint for boosting achievement without abandoning public education.--Publisher's Weekly

Sustainability: A History

Jeremy L. Caradonna (Get this book)
Caradonna contends that our civilization is at a crossroads: Either we will maintain a business-as-usual approach and face inevitable collapse or adopt the path of sustainability.For the author, sustainability is a broader concept than just conservation. With social justice and human rights as its "social dimension," it covers "a broad range of domains: urbanism, agriculture and ecological design, forestry, fisheries, economics, trade, population, housing and architecture, transportation, business, education, social justice, and soon." Caradonna claims that environmental issues should not be treated separately from political or economic issues. A provocative treatment of an important subject.--Kirkus

Mass Incarceration on Trial: A Remarkable Court Decision and the Future of Prisons in America

Jonathan Simon (Get this book)
UC Berkeley criminologist Simon offers an eloquent critique of the American prison system and uses several Supreme Court cases to examine the development of new jurisprudence that might end mass incarceration. His sketch of the history of mass incarceration attends to interlocking issues, such as racial politics, the upheavals of the 1960s, and media influence on public opinion. In his case studies, he focuses on the way decisions have addressed human rights violations arising from the prison system, from overcrowding, to the failure to reduce crime, to the torture of being incarcerated with a terminal illness. Simon's accessible and powerful book deserves widespread attention.--Publisher's Weekly