Description

At a time when popular solutions to the educational plight of poor children of color are imposed from the outside the acclaimed Algebra Project and its founder Robert Moses offer a vision of school reform based in the power of communities Founded on the belief that mathscience literacy is a prerequisite for full citizenship in society the Project works with entire communitiesparents teachers and especially studentsto create a culture of literacy around algebra a crucial steppingstone to college math and opportunity

Telling the story of this remarkable program Robert Moses draws on lessons from the 1960s Southern voter registration he famously helped organize Everyone said sharecroppers didnt want to vote It wasnt until we got them demanding to vote that we got attention Today when kids are falling wholesale through the cracks people say they dont want to learn We have to get the kids themselves to demand what everyone says they dont want

We see the Algebra Project organizing community by community Older kids serve as coaches for younger students and build a selfsustained tradition of leadership And we see the remarkable success stories of schools like the predominately poor Hart School in Bessemer Alabama which outscored the citys middleclass flagship school in just three years