Pedro Noguera
Professor, researcher, author is expert on urban school reform
More: Understanding the Disenfranchisement of Latino Males”
Noguera: The current state of public education is characterized
Noguera appears as a regular commentator on education
getting the support they need to respond to the profound ineq-
(Routledge 2011), will be published this fall.
issues on cnn, National Public Radio and several other national
news outlets. He has earned a number of awards for his work in
education including the Scholastic Corporation Education Hero
Award, the aesa Critics’ Choice Book Award, the Schott Foundation Award for Research on Race and Gender, the Whitney
Young Award for Leadership in Education and the University of California’s Distinguished Teaching Award.
His additional book titles include “Unfinished Business:
Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in Our Schools,” “Creating the Opportunity to Learn” with A. Wade Boykin and “City
Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education.”
Noguera received his bachelor’s degree in sociology and
history, along with a teaching credential, from Brown University
in 1981. He earned his master’s degree in sociology from Brown
in 1982, and earned a doctorate in sociology from uc Berkeley
in 1989.
CSB: What is the last book you read? Noguera: “Beyond the Silence: Instructional Approaches and
Students’ Attitudes,” by David Kirkland. I was asked to review it.
CSB: What comes to you naturally? Noguera: Swimming, talking and making new friends. CSB: What advice would you give to your younger self? Noguera: Don’t be afraid to take on difficult challenges – like
learning a new language or making use of new technology.
CSB: What three people, living or deceased, would you like to invite
to dinner?
Noguera: Mohandas Gandhi, Maria Montessori and Paulo Freire. CSB: What is the best thing you ever bought? Noguera: My first house. It was a real fixer-upper. CSB: As a former classroom teacher, a sociologist and a current
education researcher, how would you describe the state of the nation’s k-12
schools?
18 | California School Business
by political confusion and policy failure. Our schools are not uities in our society, and to prepare our students for life in the
21st century. More often than not, they are blamed for failures that they do not create.
To a large degree, our students are not being prepared
for the complex world they live in because our policy-makers
have gotten us focused too narrowly on test preparation.
CSB: In California there’s an ongoing debate on how to fix the public
school system. It comes down to two camps – funding or reform. Which is it?
Noguera: In California, funding and reform are needed. Schools have been underfunded for many years, especially those in the poorest communities.
Reform is needed because too many schools are failing to
provide students with the education they need to be prepared for work or college.
CSB: Are students in urban schools and students in suburban schools
getting equal education opportunities? How can we address any inequities?
Noguera: No. Funding is still determined to a large degree
by local property taxes, and there are inequities within many
districts as well. Money matters because it affects the qual-
ity of teachers, facilities and programs. We must address these inequities through laws enacted at the state level. Funds
must be targeted directly to students based on their needs.
CSB: You wrote an article called “The future of Educational Change.”
Briefly, tell us what you think the future of public education looks like.
Noguera: At this point, it is difficult to tell what the future of
public education will be. My hope is that we will continue to have a system of public education that is open and accessible
to all children. However, that system must look very different
than it does right now. We need to provide families with more
options and choices with respect to types of schools because our children have so many different needs.
The charter movement has begun to produce some innova-
tion in some places, but it has also contributed to greater inequity.
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