The chapters in The Make-or-Break Year that focus on Tilden High School are far and away the most compelling parts of the book, where we get close to a handful of young teens and the adults who support them. And they make a compelling case that the next frontier for Chicago Public Schools in improving high school outcomes is creating…
Tag: The Make-or-Break Year
How Freshman OnTrack Transformed Hancock High School
Earlier this week, we took a look at some big-picture lessons from Emily Krone Phillips’ new book, The Make-or-Break Year. To see the work from a school-level lens, Krone Phillips recounts Hancock High’s remarkable turnaround using Freshman OnTrack. At first, the Hancock story reads a bit like a traditional ed-reform narrative—idealistic principal Pam Glynn pushes her team of skeptical, mostly-White teachers…
Talking Freshmen On Track and “The Make-or-Break-Year” at 57th Street Books
Healthy skepticism fuels good journalism, smart research and thoughtful education. And yet, as Emily Krone Phillips tells us in her new book, The Make-or-Break Year, “the movement that occurred in Chicago to support freshmen hinged not on skepticism, but on belief. … Belief that the dropout crisis was something that could be solved. Belief in the research that showed ninth…