Learning in Public: Lessons for a Racially Divided America from My Daughter's School

In Learning in Public, Courtney E. Martin (Do It Anyway) grapples with questions of parenting, education and racial divides in the United States through the lens of her daughter's public school in Oakland, Calif.: first selecting it, then attending it. Determined to live her anti-racist values, Martin ultimately chose to send her daughter to Emerson Elementary--a decision informed by dozens of conversations with other parents, educators, school board members, neighbors. Martin brings to her perspective on her daughter's education a self-reflection that goes well beyond her one daughter and their one family, or even their one school, placing instead the story of her white family in the racial history of the U.S. and the gross disparities seen in the American public education system. This reflection, combined with Martin's willingness to admit her own mistakes and acknowledge where her actions may have harmed others, allows Learning in Public to live up to its title. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

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