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Introduction by Dr. Pedro Noguera
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Pedro Noguera.
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Introduction
Education is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. Debates over affirmative action, bilingual education, equal financing of schools and access to pre-school are just some of the issues that have shown the importance of education to civil and human rights in recent years. There is a lot at stake in these struggles. The state of our nation's schools will play a large role in determining the kind of country we will live in. It is also becoming increasingly clear that expanding access and improving the quality of education, especially in poor countries, will be essential to addressing larger social and economic problems facing many nations in the world.
The Education Rights section of In Motion Magazine is dedicated to providing a forum for activists, educators, parents and students who are searching for alternative ideas to the challenges confronting education today. The need for alternative ideas is clear. Educational policy in the U.S. has largely failed to address the problems confronting poor communities, and more often than not, educational research has not proven particularly helpful either.
We are looking for writers to contribute to this section who are connected to the important struggles that are occurring in education today and who can bring a fresh perspective and shed light on some of the issues that leave so many people confused and disempowered today.
We now have a law called No Child Left Behind, but we have millions of children being left behind, educationally, socially and economically. We have millions of college educated people in this country but ignorance about the world and the state of the country we live in is rampant. Now more than ever, education is a political issue that must be engaged and given the priority it deserves in struggles for civil and human rights. It is our hope that this section of the magazine can play a small role in combatting ignorance and arming those in the fight for educational justice with ideas and inspiration.
We also hope that our interactive format will encourage you to respond to our contributors.
Pedro Antonio Noguera, Ph.D.
Dr. Pedro Noguera is the Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education at New York University. Dr. Noguera is an urban sociologist whose scholarship and research focuses on the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions in the urban environment. He holds tenured faculty appointments in the departments of Teaching and Learning and Humanities and Social Sciences at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Development, as well as in the Department of Sociology at New York University. Dr. Noguera is also the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education and the co-Director of the Institute for the Study of Globalization and Education in Metropolitan Settings (IGEMS). In 2008, he was appointed by the Governor of New York to serve on the State University of New York Board of Trustees.
Dr. Noguera received his bachelors' degree in Sociology and History and a teaching credential from Brown University in 1981. He earned his masters' degree in Sociology from Brown in 1982 received his doctorate in Sociology from UC Berkeley in 1989. Dr. Noguera was a classroom teacher in public schools in Providence, RI and Oakland, CA. He has held tenured faculty appoints at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (2000-2003), where he was named the Judith K. Dimon Professor of Communities and Schools and at the University of California, Berkeley (1990-2000), where he was also the Director of the Institute for the Study of Social Change. He has published over one hundred and fifty research articles, monographs and research reports on topics such as urban school reform, conditions that promote student achievement, youth violence, the potential impact of school choice and vouchers on urban public schools, and race and ethnic relations in American society. His work has appeared in multiple major research journals. Dr. Noguera is the author of The Imperatives of Power: Political Change and the Social Basis of Regime Support in Grenada (Peter Lang Publishers, 1997), City Schools and the American Dream (Teachers College Press 2003), Unfinished Business: Closing the Achievement Gap in Our Nation's Schools with Jean Yonemura Wing (Josey Bass, 2006) City Kids, City Teachers, with Bill Ayers and Greg Michie (New Press 2008), and The Trouble With Black Boys…and Other Reflections on Race, Equity and the Future of Public Education (Wiley and Sons, 2008). Dr. Noguera appears as a regular commentator on educational issues on CNN, National Public Radio, and other national news outlets.
- 1997 -- Wellness Foundation Award for research on youth violence
- 1997 -- University of California's Distinguished Teaching Award
- 2001 -- Honorary doctorate from the University of San Francisco
- 2001 -- Centennial Medal, Philadelphia University
- 2003 -- Forward Magazine Gold Award (City Schools and the American Dream)
- 2003 -- AESA Critics Choice Book Award (City Schools and the American Dream)
- 2005 -- Whitney Young Award for Leadership in Education
- 2006 -- Eugene Carrothers Award for Public Service
- 2008 -- Schott Foundation Award for Research on Race and Gender
- 2008 -- AESA Critics Choice Book Award (Trouble With Black Boys - Josey Bass 2008)
- 2009 -- Scholastic Corporation Education Hero Award
- 2010 -- Honorary Doctorate Bank Street College
- 2010 -- Award for Leadership in Education Association of Dominican School Aadministrators
- 2010 -- Border Crosser Award for leadership in Promoting Racial Understanding and Justice.
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