Surprising gains in 5 school districts you’ve never heard of, plus Chicago

When Karin Chenoweth began a five-year stint as a columnist at The Washington Post in 1999, she soon became one of the best education writers I had ever read. She has gotten better since. Her latest book takes us to the heart of student achievement, and why we so rarely give our most disadvantaged students what they need.

The title is “Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement.” As she has done in previous books and in her work as writer-in-residence for the Education Trust advocacy organization, she explains in detail how some educators have managed to defy low expectations, despite an undertow of mindless routine in our schools...