Mission Possible Book Review and Giveaway

Mission Possible: How the Secrets of the Success Academies Can Work in Any School4

By Eva Moskowitz and Arin Lavinia

In this book Eva Moskowitz and Arin Lavinia offer practical, classroom-tested ideas for dramatically improving teaching and learning. The two are the the founder and CEO of the Success Charter Network in Harlem, and they describe how they took a charter school in the middle of Harlem, and made it one of the top schools in New York City and State within three years.

This book describes the strategies they used to succeed, and to take their student’s learning to a higher level, and addresses some of the problems affecting education in this country.  Stagnation, being unable to accomplish one’s job at a high level, is one of the greatest sources of low teacher morale.  So why do teachers feel this way, and why is teaching treated so differently than it does in other professions?

I think a lot of the difficulties and frustrations that teachers face is caused by the lack of control. Teachers are not necessarily able to teach the way that they want, but have to follow directions from school officials about things like textbooks to use, what technology they have available and extras that are available.  So they have to make do with what they have, and that gets frustrating, and causes some teachers to give up.  Charter schools like Success Academy are designed to help with some of these issues, and give teachers more control over the instructional approach, curriculum and budget.

This seems like a great solution to the problem, and I wish there were more charter schools available in my area.  I thought reading the book and learning how Success Academy approached these issues was interesting.  The school seems to emphasize working with the teachers to match the students needs, which is a great way to approach education, because one approach will not work for everyone.  I think this book is interesting reading for anyone who wants to learn about the way one school made a difference.

If you’d like to learn more you can check out the Mission Possible website, or connect with Eva Moskowitz on Facebook or on twitter @MoskowitzEva. In addition I have a copy of this book to giveaway to one of my readers.  Enter in the Rafflecopter form below.

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Disclosure: I received product to review, all opinions are my own.