Getting Schooled on Resistance examines the experience of one school’s attempt to push back on the deficit model of education and represents the overall story of urban school reform. In this book, readers will find stories and critical analysis of what happens to students, teachers and schools when their ideas and thoughts are undervalued.

First published under the title Untangling Urban Middle School Reform: Clashing Agendas for Literacy Standards and Student Success in 2016, Getting Schooled on Resistance is timely and relevant for educators, policy makers and pre-service teachers today. We are arguing the same “urban school reform” narrative we’ve been arguing since the early 80’s.

We have moved from chalkboards to Smart Boards and Chromebooks, but the same narratives of students of poverty and failure exist. It’s no wonder students rely so heavily on AI for their writing when their own ideas are undervalued or marked “wrong.

”Urbanski’s up-close and unflinching analysis illuminates how rigid accountability structures shift power away from the teachers and administrators who know the students best and in so doing perpetuate the “bad student” moniker, all too often becoming a self-fulling prophecy. .