A really great book. Payne does a good job of being very objective and honest about what needs to be done and what needs to stop in terms of education and attempts to reform education in America. Perhaps the only possible downside is Payne's inclusion of humorous analogies like "spouting out reforms faster than Baskin Robbins creates flavors." They make the book more entertaining and it feels like more of a conversation than a report of the findings of various studies, but it does also make it seem a bit less professional, although it is clearly well studied.

i'd give this a 3.75. it is a well-written, complex account of why so many reforms have consistently failed to bring about greater "change" in urban public schools (which you probably could have figured out from the title). its based mostly on the chicago consortium work, and centers around the idea of "demoralized schools" and irrational organizational culture at all levels of the education system. the book is heavy on centering the problems around adults - i can imagine this book coming across as insulting to practicing teachers; i appreciate that it avoids a deficit perspective when it comes to students (for the most part). generally speaking, payne offers a fairly negative view of the current state of schools and education with few ideas for how to address the problems that he identifies. i do wonder, however, what an updated edition of this book might look like, particularly given the proliferation of market-based reforms since it was published (2008).

A very thorough overview of the Ed reform sphere pre-2009, which was very illuminating for me since just about everything I’ve heard/learned about is after that time period. Useful to think about why so many of these silver bullet solutions have failed. I understand why he didn’t want to advocate for any specifics, but I also found myself sort of scratching my head at what the true takeaways were

Using real examples of mostly failed school reform efforts (many in Chicago), the author shares a thoughtful and insightful analysis that I found helpful and oddly optimistic. His writing conveys an understanding of and compassion for all of the actors in the messy and important work of education, while still insisting that we continue the difficult work of improving academic experiences for children in urban school systems.

read for my urban education course

Payne straddles the fence, but sometimes that's not so bad. He helped me realize that the conservative sense of urgency (intended or not) combined with the progressive sense that culture change must precede real progress in schools and takes a lot of time is the right blend. Of course, in Harrisburg, Julie Botel and Jerry Kohn did have that blend. As always, it seems a polarized approach simply won't work, because the fight trumps the mission.
He's also good with analogy and that's helpful for my writing.