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Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America | 
 enlarge | Author: Jay Mathews
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $12.10
You Save: $2.85 (19%)
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Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 19548
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 329
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 1565125169
Dewey Decimal Number: 370
EAN: 9781565125162
ASIN: 1565125169
Publication Date: January 20, 2009 (In 12 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
When Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin signed up for Teach for America right after college and found themselves utter failures in the classroom, they vowed to remake themselves into superior educators. They did that—and more. In their early twenties, by sheer force of talent and determination never to take no for an answer, they created a wildly successful fifth-grade experience that would grow into the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), which today includes sixty-six schools in nineteen states and the District of Columbia.
KIPP schools incorporate what Feinberg and Levin learned from America's best, most charismatic teachers: lessons need to be lively; school days need to be longer (the KIPP day is nine and a half hours); the completion of homework has to be sacrosanct (KIPP teachers are available by telephone day and night). Chants, songs, and slogans such as "Work hard, be nice" energize the program. Illuminating the ups and downs of the KIPP founders and their students, Mathews gives us something quite rare: a hopeful book about education.
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| Customer Reviews:
Required reading! December 26, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America
Exciting! Challenging! Thrilling! Having been in the high school classroom for 30 years and now in the college classroom, I was HOOKED on reading this book immediately when I received it and started reading... EVERY active classroom teacher OUGHT to read this book ASAP... EVERY educational administrator OUGHT to read this book ASAP... EVERY parent of a student currently in grades K - 12 OUGHT to read this book ASAP... EVERY grandparent (like me) OUGHT to read this book ASAP! WHY? So that we gain awareness of the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) - I confess that until I started reading this book, I did NOT know about KIPP! - so that we can consider the practical ideas for reform of EDUCATION throughout our USA!
There is the INSPIRATION as one learns the story of the founders of KIPP - Teach for America volunteers - Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin. There is the PRACTICAL DESCRIPTION of effective classroom attitudes, techniques/strategies and extra classroom involvements.
I confess, this book has enkindled a NEW commitment on my part for the GENUINE REFORM of EDUCATION in our USA with FOCUS on my own state of Wisconsin. (SHOCKED when I checked KIPP online to learn that there is NOT a single KIPP school in WI as of now!)
Read "WORK HARD. BE NICE."! JUST DO IT! And see what happens... I have the audacity of HOPE that this book will generate a tsunami-like wave of reform of EDUCATION throughout our USA... and, in fact, the whole wide world. (There are KIPP schools around the world. See the list on the KIPP website: www.kipp.com.)
THANKS to JAY MATHEWS, the education journalist with The Washington Post, for writing this book!
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