Stubborn Hope: Memoir of an Urban Teacher is a unique portrait of two decades of teaching in an urban high school, and an inside look at the effects of the new reforms on urban education. Sometimes humorously, sometimes painfully, the author describes the struggles and achievements of some exceptional young people. Interspersed with the portraits are lessons learned about teaching in an urban environment: class management; homework and literacy; the art, not science, of teaching. Finally, the author describes the route her school has taken over the last two decades of changing reforms. In the...