Hope Against Hope: Three Schools, One City, and the Struggle to Educate America’s Children - Tapa dura

New Orleans is a city like no other, and Carr demonstrates how its unique character has both helped and hindered its educational recovery. (Library Journal)

A fascinating account.With ground-level reporting, Carr shows the disconnect between philosophies of education and what happens in the classroom, underscoring that good intentions aren't enough. (World Magazine)

[A] nuanced, concrete picture focused on individuals seeking to make the reform regime work for the children in their schools. The book is a tremendous achievement, and should be required reading on all sides of these debates. (Bookforum)

An important book about issues facing urban districts everywhere. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Carr's reporting is some of the best education reform journalism to date.For anyone seeking to understand U.S. education and education reform, [her] story of New Orleans is an essential place to start. (The Wilson Quarterly)

Carr's decision to view the situation through the eyes of three people with a stake in the outcome.humanizes the story, and places Hope Against Hope in the same class as other groundbreaking books such as Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities and Alex Kotlowitz's There Are No Children Here. (Bookpage)

[W]ith journalistic precision and a remarkably unflinching objectivity. Carr clearly delineates the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, admirably delving into the complex racial, political and social ethos underpinning each, and melding historical context and hard statistical data along the way.[W]hat makes the book special is its focus on the experiences of the teachers, students and administrators that form the true core, the heart, of Hope Against Hope. (Philadelphia City Paper)

Meticulously reported, competently written, and sometimes surprisingly intimate. (Columbia Journalism Review)

It's work like this that makes journalism truly matter, that makes clear that reportage is not merely about fact and argument and theory, but about human lives in the balance. In Hope Against Hope, Sarah Carr has taken an open mind and a careful eye to the delicate, complicated issue of public education and the fading American commitment to equality of opportunity. She does so not by embracing ideological cant or political banter, but by following people through the schools of New Orleans, a city that is trying desperately to reconstitute and better itself after a near-death experience. Don't embarrass yourself by speaking further on American education without first reading this. (David Simon, create of The Wire and Treme)

With grace and profound intimacy, Sarah Carr immerses us in the lives of a group of students, teachers and administrators in New Orleans, ground zero for the debate over school reform, and lays bare all that we face as we try to strengthen our schools. Riveting. Empathic. Incisive. Hope Against Hope is storytelling at its absolute finest. (Alex Kotlowitz, author of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER and THERE ARE NO CHILDREN HERE)