The American public has increasingly heard that teacher unions and quality education are contradictory terms and that unions are responsible for the failure of public schools. Many critics of the unions would cheerfully channel public funds to largely nonunion private and parochial schools as free market alternatives. The present volume, edited by friends of the teacher unions and featuring contributions by prominent education scholars as well as union activists, has a far more positive perspective on the achievements and value of teacher unions and our public education system. The collection...

This volume considers African-American education in the 21st century through the lens of the Chicago School Tradition, at the University of Chicago. The Chicago School Tradition, among other emphases, stressed the optimistic view that all children who do not have serious physical or emotional impairments can do well in school, if provided access to effective teachers, sufficient resources and adequate opportunities to learn. On the occasion of Professor Edgar G. Epps' retirement from the University of Chicago, as Marshall Field IV Professor of Urban Education, this volume includes...

The "problem of the 21st century" is rapidly expanding diversity alongside stubbornly persistent status and power inequities by race, ethnicity, gender, class, language, citizenship and region. Extensive technological, economic, political and social changes, along with immigration, combine to produce a global community of great diversity and interpenetration. Unfortunately, this global community continues to be fractured by extreme disparities in wealth and power, divided into "haves" and "have-nots." Universities around the globe can play critical roles in economic development and...