How Schools Really Matter: Why Our Assumption about Schools and Inequality Is Mostly Wrong AUTH-12519546 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARDS

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARDS

SECTION 4: POWER

Only a certain someone gets in her way

a thundering army of mercenaries

How Schools Really Matter: Why Our Assumption about Schools and Inequality Is Mostly Wrong AUTH-12519546 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARDSMost of us assume that public schools in America are unequal that the quality of the education varies with the location of the school and that as a result, children learn more in the schools that serve mostly rich, white kids than in the schools serving mostly poor, black kids. But it turns out that this common assumption is misplaced. As Douglas B. Downey shows in How Schools Really Matter, achievement gaps have very little to do with what goes on in