High Stakes Education

Noted scholar Pauline Lipman explores the implications of education accountability reforms, particularly in urban schools, in the current political, economic, and cultural context of intensifying globalization and increasing social inequality and marginalization along lines of race and class.

"Anyone who really wants to understand urban school reform must read High Stakes Education. In it, Lipman deals with both the macro and micro socio-cultural issues of urban schools. She deftly weaves together the political and the personal to tell a story that should outrage every caring citizen." -- Gloria Ladson-Billings, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison"This important book examines the effects on education in Chicago of twin processes of the political economy: the deterioration of economic opportunities for black and Latino urban workers in the face of globalization, and the efforts of Chicago elites to gentrify the city to attract corporate finance. Lipman is one of very few authors to study education this way--by assessing the intersections of political economy, race, and urban education policy. In addition, she presents valuable lessons in resistance to policies of the urban regime. This book is crucial for understanding what is happening in cities--and city schools-today." -- Jean Anyon, author of Ghetto Schooling: A Political Economy of UrbanEducational Reform"The language of 'accountability,' 'standards,' and 'testing' has captured educational policy-making in numerous nation states. At the intersection of globalized economic and cultural movements, public school systems are under siege and concerns with equity and justice have been jettisoned. In this powerful study of the reform of Chicago public schools, Pauline Lipman provides a stark warning about the human costs of these neo-liberal policies. Increased segregation, lower quality education, and ever widening social inequity are among the outcomes of policies that parade a superficial concern for 'all children' but have particular and deeply racist results." -- David Gillborn, Institute of Education, University of London and Editor of the international journal Race,Ethnicity and Education, "Anyone who really wants to understand urban school reform must read High Stakes Education. In it, Lipman deals with both the macro and micro socio-cultural issues of urban schools. She deftly weaves together the political and the personal to tell a story that should outrage every caring citizen." - Gloria Ladson-Billings, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Pauline Lipman is Associate Professor of Education Policy Studies and Research and Director of the Institute for Teacher Development and Research at DePaul University, Chicago.