Here are recommended books on history and current issues in school reform and education policy. We also suggest a subscription to the Rethinking Schools journal for articles on education from a social justice perspective. Find children's/YA books and more titles on teaching in our full collection of booklists by theme.

• General
• Lessons for the Classroom
• History
• Race and Education

• Early Childhood
• Testing
• Multicultural Education
• School Reform

• Family Engagement
• Critical Literacy
• Children's

55 Strong: Inside The West Virginia Teachers' Strike

Edited by Elizabeth Catte, Emily Hilliard, and Jessica Salfia

Brooklyn Dreams: My Life in Public Education

By Sonia Nieto

 

City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education

By Pedro Noguera

 

Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap

By A. Wade Boykin, Pedro Noguera

Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation

By Jeff Bale (Editor), Sarah Knopp (Editor)

 

For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education

By Christopher Emdin

The Herb Kohl Reader: Awakening the Heart of Teaching

By Herbert Kohl, William Ayers (Foreword by)

Holler If You Hear Me: The Education of a Teacher and His Students

By Gregory Michie

 

Indigenous Children's Survivance in Public Schools

By Leilani Sabzalian

Innovative Voices in Education: Engaging Diverse Communities

By Eileen Gale Kugler (Editor)

 

Keeping the Promise? The Debate Over Charter Schools

By Stephanie Walters

 

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

By James W. Loewen

Miseducating for the Global Economy: How Corporate Power Damages Education and Subverts Students' Futures

By Gerald Coles

The MIS-Education of the Negro

By Carter Godwin Woodson

 

Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom

By Lisa Delpit

Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition

By Paulo Freire

 

Pedagogy of Insurrection: From Resurrection to Revolution

By Peter McLaren

Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies for Erasing the Opportunity Gap

By Paul C. Gorski

 

The Real Ebonics Debate

By Theresa Perry (Editor), Lisa D. Delpit (Editor)

 

Teach Freedom: Education for Liberation in the African-American Tradition

Edited by Charles M. Payne and Carol Sills Strickland

Teaching, a Life's Work: A Mother-Daughter Dialogue

By Sonia Nieto and Alicia Lopez

Teaching the Taboo: Courage and Imagination in the Classroom

By Rick Ayers with William Ayers

 

Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School

By Carla Shalaby

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria - Revised and Updated Edition

By Beverly Tatum

Why We Teach Now: Why We Teach Now

By Sonia Nieto (Editor)

Young, Gifted, and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African-American Students

By Theresa Perry, Asa G. Hilliard, III (Joint Author), Claude Steele (Joint Author)

 

The New Teacher Book: Finding Purpose, Balance, and Hope During Your First Years in the Classroom

Edited By Linda Christensen, Stan Karp, Bob Peterson, Moé Yonamine

A People's History for the Classroom

By Bill Bigelow

 

A People's Curriculum for the Earth: Teaching about the Environmental Crisis

By Bill Bigelow (Editor), Tim Swinehart (Editor)

 

Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching about Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word

By Linda Christensen

Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years: Resources for Teaching about the Impact of the Arrival of Columbus in the Americas

By Bill Bigelow (Editor), Bob Peterson (Editor)

Rethinking Ethnic Studies

Edited By R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, Miguel Zavala, Christine Sleeter, Wayne Au

Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World

By Bill Bigelow (Editor), Bob Peterson (Editor)

Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers

By Eric (Rico) Gutstein (Editor), Bob Peterson (Editor)

Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality

By Kim Cosier (Editor), Rachel Harper (Editor), Jeff Sapp (Editor)

Rhythm and Resistance: Teaching Poetry for Social Justice

By Linda Christensen (Editor), Dyan Watson (Editor)

 

Teaching for Black Lives

Edited by Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian, Wayne Au

Teaching Climate Change to Adolescents: Reading, Writing, and Making a Difference

By Richard Beach, Jeff Share, Allen Webb

Teaching a People's History of Abolition and the Civil War

Edited by Adam Sanchez

A Class of Their Own: Black Teachers in the Segregated South

By Adam Fairclough

 

The Development of the Alternative Black Curriculum, 1890-1940: Countering the Master Narrative

Alana D. Murray

Education for Extinction

By David Wallace Adams

The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935

By James D. Anderson

Educational Reconstruction: African American Schools in the Urban South, 1865-1890

By Hilary Green

The Freedom Schools: Student Activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement

By Jon Hale

The Lost Education of Horace Tate: Uncovering the Hidden Heroes Who Fought for Justice in Schools

By Vanessa Siddle Walker

Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom

By Heather Andrea Williams

Simple Justice: The History of Brown V. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality

By Richard Kluger

The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession

By Dana Goldstein

 

The White Architects of Black Education: Ideology and Power in America, 1865-1954

By William H. Watkins

 

Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development

By Enid Lee (Editor), Deborah Menkart (Editor), Margo Okazawa-Rey (Editor)

Black Teachers on Teaching

By Michele Foster

Courageous Conversations about Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools

By Glenn E. Singleton

The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children

By Gloria Ladson-Billings

Different Differenter: An Activity Book About Skin Color*

By Jyoti Gupta

The Freedom Schools: Student Activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement

By Jon Hale

Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side

By Eve L. Ewing

No Bs (Bad Stats)

By Ivory A. Toldson

Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom

By Lisa Delpit

Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching: A Resource Guide for Classrooms and Communities

By Deborah Menkart (Editor)

Rethinking Multicultural Education

By Wayne Au

Simple Justice: The History of Brown V. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality

By Richard Kluger

Teach Freedom: Education for Liberation in the African-American Tradition

By Charles M. Payne (Editor), Carol Sills Strickland (Editor), Charles E. Cobb, Jr. (Foreword by)

Teaching for Black Lives

By Rethinking Schools

The Trouble with Black Boys: And Other Reflections on Race, Equity, and the Future of Public Education

By Pedro A. Noguera

We Can't Teach What We Don't Know: White Teachers, Multiracial Schools

By Gary R. Howard, Sonia Nieto (Foreword by)

We Want to Do More Than Survive

By Bettina Love

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?

By Beverly Tatum

Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves

By Louise Derman-Sparks, Julie Olsen Edwards

Anti-Bias Education in the Early Childhood Classroom: Hand in Hand, Step by Step

By Katie Kissinger

Black Ants and Buddhists: Thinking Critically and Teaching Differently in the Primary Grades

By Mary Cowhey

Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children: 10th Anniversary Edition

By Vivian Vasquez

Rethinking Early Childhood Education

By Ann Pelo (Editor)

 

The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy

By Nicholas Lemann

More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing

By Jesse Hagopian (Editor)

 

Pencils Down: Rethinking High-Stakes Testing and Accountability in Public Schools

By Wayne Au (Editor), Melissa Bollow Tempel (Editor)

Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education, 7th Edition

By Sonia Nieto, Patty Bode

Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development

By Enid Lee (Editor), Deborah Menkart (Editor), Margo Okazawa-Rey (Editor)

 

Finding Joy in Teaching Students of Diverse Backgrounds: Culturally Responsive and Socially Just Practices in U.S. Classrooms

By Sonia Nieto

 

Made in America: Immigrant Students in Our Public Schools

By Laurie Olsen

No Bs (Bad Stats)

By Ivory A. Toldson

Open Minds to Equality: A Sourcebook of Learning Activities to Affirm Diversity and Promote Equity

By Nancy Schniedewind, Ellen Davidson

The Pedagogy of Confidence

Yvette Jackson

Rethinking Multicultural Education

By Wayne Au

 

Schooltalk: Rethinking What We Say About and To Students Every Day

By Mica Pollock

Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice

By Maurianne Adams (Editor), Lee Anne Bell (Editor)

Teachers as Allies: Transformative Practices for Teaching Dreamers and Undocumented Students

By Shelley Wong (Editor)

Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education

By Noliwe Rooks

 

"lift Us Up, Don't Push Us Out!" Voices from the Front Lines of the Educational Justice Movement

By Mark R. Warren, David Goodman

Multiplication Is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other People's Children

By Lisa Delpit

 

Quality Education as a Constitutional Right: Creating a Grassroots Movement to Transform Public Schools

By Theresa Perry (Editor), Robert P. Moses (Editor), Joan T. Wynne (Editor)

Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools

By Diane Ravitch

 

Rethinking School Reform

Edited by Linda Christensen, Stan Karp

 

Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools

By Jonathan Kozol

Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life]

By Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

 

School Reform, Corporate Style: Chicago, 1880-2000

By Dorothy Shipps

 

So Much Reform, So Little Change: The Persistence of Failure in Urban Schools

By Charles M. Payne

 

Teach for America Counter-Narratives: Alumni Speak Up and Speak Out

By Jameson T. Brewer (Editor), Kathleen Demarrais (Editor)

These Schools Belong to You and Me: Why We Can't Afford to Abandon Our Public Schools

By Deborah Meier, Emily Gasoi

This Is Not a Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education

By Jose Vilson

 

Between Families And Schools: Creating Meaningful Relationships

By Teaching for Change

Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family-School Partnerships

By Anne T. Henderson (Editor)

A Chord of Three Strands

By Soo Hong

A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing for School Reform

By Mark R. Warren, Karen L. Mapp

 

Powerful Partnerships: A Teacher's Guide to Engaging Families for Student Success

By Karen Mapp, Ilene Carver, Jessica Lander

School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Preparing Educators and Improving Schools

By Joyce L. Epstein

Tapping the Potential of Parents: A Strategic Guide to Boosting Student Achievement Through Family Involvement

By Patricia Edwards

 

Critical Media Pedagogy: Teaching for Achievement in City Schools

By Ernest Morrell with Rudy Dueas

 

The Dark Fantastic: Race & the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games

By Ebony Elizabeth Thomas

Doing Critical Literacy

By Hilary Janks

Rethinking Popular Culture and Media - 2nd Edition

Edited by Elizabeth Marshall, Özlem Sensoy

Chrysanthemum

By Kevin Henkes

The Day You Begin*

By Jacqueline Woodson, Rafael López

El dia en que descubres quien eres

By Jacqueline Woodson, Rafael Lopez

First Grade Takes a Test

By Miriam Cohen, Ronald Himler (Illustrator)

Freedom School, Yes!

By Amy Littlesugar

Harbor Me

By Jacqueline Woodson

Taking Down Ms. Moody *

By the teen authors of Reach Incorporated

Midnight Teacher: Lilly Ann Granderson and Her Secret School*

By Janet Halfmann, London Ladd

---

If you value this book list, please help us promote it and create more book lists.

Donate Today