Rizga - Mission High : One School, How Experts Tried to Fail It, and the Students and Teachers Who Made It Triumph (9781568584621)

Praise for Kristina Rizgas MISSION HIGH

This book is a godsend. For years we at 826 Valencia have known how great Mission High isits students, its teachers, its myriad innovationsand weve told everyone we could. Now Kristina Rizga has put it all together in a highly readable and moving portrait of a school that succeeds despite being often misconstrued or mislabeled or even dismissed. There is joy in the hallways of Mission High and daily academic triumph at Mission High, and this book explains how this extraordinary school gets it done. This book is a crucial primer for anyone wanting to go beyond the simplistic labels and metrics and really understand an urban high school and its highly individual, resilient, eager and brilliant students and educators.

Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and
The Circle and cofounder of 826 National and ScholarMatch

Kristina Rizga writes for those of us weary of trendy ed reform dispensed from on high. Instead, she listens hard to the students and teachers who must deal with their daily consequences. Andwith rigor, common sense, and empathyshe tells of the teachers and students confronting shifting tides of reform and profoundly stacked odds, and succeeding. The Mission High that Rizga describes is a beacon, and her deeply textured, heartbreakingly humane book also shines a beautifully clarifying light.

Jeff Chang, author of Who We Be: The Colorization of America and
Cant Stop Wont Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation

In Mission High , Kristina Rizga embeds at a San Francisco public school to show the high standards, professionalismand even lovethat belie the easy label of failing school. A much-needed corrective to an education debate that often fails to ask how students and teachers experience reform on the ground.

Dana Goldstein, author of The Teacher Wars: A History
of Americas Most Embattled Profession

A clear-eyed, evidence-based, and wonderfully fresh understanding of what education reform truly means.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and
publisher of the The Nation

By introducing us to the struggles and triumphs of teachers and students, Rizga has redefined what success means in American education. Its not what testing reveals, but what lives are transformed. Mission High is one of the best books about education Ive read in years. It should be a conversation changer.

LynNell Hancock, professor of journalism, Columbia University, and
director of the Spencer Fellowship for Education Journalism

Kristina Rizgas Mission High depicts an educational paradox: schools that perform poorly on tests, on average, can also be some of the most deeply engaging and productive learning spaces. Through vivid, compelling portraits of dynamic, resilient students and thoughtful, committed educators, Rizga captures beautifully how young scholars are encouraged and developed. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the holistic nature of teaching and learning.

Prudence L. Carter, professor of education, Stanford University, and
coauthor with Kevin G. Welner of Closing the Opportunity Gap:
What America Must Do to Give Every Child an Even Chance

Mission High

Mission High

One School, How Experts
Tried to Fail It, and
the Students and Teachers
Who Made It Triumph

Kristina Rizga

Copyright 2015 by Kristina Rizga

Published by Nation Books,

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

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New York, NY 10003

Nation Books is a co-publishing venture of the Nation Institute and the Perseus Books Group

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Designed by Jack Lenzo

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rizga, Kristina.

Mission High : one school, how experts tried to fail it, and the students and teachers who made it triumph / Kristina Rizga.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-56858-462-1 (ebook) 1. Mission High School (San Francisco, Calif.) 2. Academic achievementCaliforniaSan Francisco. 3. Educational evaluationCaliforniaSan Francisco. 4. Educational sociologyCaliforniaSan Francisco. 5. High school studentsCaliforniaSan Francisco. I. Title.

LA245.S4R59 2015

371.2620979461dc23

2015007384

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Mike Stern

To our greatest teachers: Fruma and Pteris Rizga,
Yvette and Gerry Stern

To Mission High School students, teachers, and staff, whose boundless capacity for inclusion, generosity, and patience made this project possible

Contents

What motivates students to learn, work hard, and persevere through lifes toughest challenges? Why is it so difficult for the worlds wealthiest and most powerful country to build good schools in every neighborhood? This book started with a reporting assignment, when Mother Jones magazine sent me to answer these questions in a series of stories about public schools. The assignment was supposed to last for eight months, but as I immersed myself in the private lives of students and teachers, the surprising realities I discovered compelled me to stay at the school for four years. The more time I spent in classrooms, the more I began to realize that most remedies that politicians and education reform experts were promoting as solutions for fixing schools were wrong.

Like many Americans, I believe that democracy and the economy cant function without decent public schools that are free and accessible to everyone. It is also clear that our educational system is not working for too many children, particularly African American and Latino students. While there is no achievement gap between white and black infants, Until the United States can find a way to teach all students effectively, our country will continue to waste one of its greatest assets in the global economy: the huge reservoir of diverse and creative human talent. Why does America, a country that strives to be a moral leader in the world, have such stubborn racial and income gaps in education? And what can be done to fix this?

I have been obsessed with these questions as a journalist for over a decade, and when I started a job as an education reporter for Mother Jones , I brought them up in my first meeting with my editor, Monika Bauerlein. We were sitting in her office in San Francisco, talking about schools, educational reform, and a new, personally painful reality in my life. Most of my middle-class friends, whose kids were about to enter elementary school, were leaving San Franciscos public schools for the suburbs. Those who stayed sent their kids to private schools. Why do our public schools have such a bad reputation? I asked Bauerlein. Why cant my hometown of San Francisco, one of the most affluent and progressive cities in the world, build excellent public schools for everyone?