UNO Press is pleased to announce the official release of The Garden Path: The Miseducation of the City by noted educator, charter school leader and university administrator Andre Perry. The book will be launched Sunday, February 27 at a special broadcast of WWNO 89.9’s "The Reading Life," hosted by Susan Larson. The program will take place at 5:30 p.m. at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, 2800 Chartres St, and is open to the public.
Perry uses creative non-fiction to tell the story of an idealistic professor, Dr. Isaac Boyd, who quickly ascends to the forefront of the post-Katrina charter school movement--a movement deemed unsympathetic as it takes control of persistently failing schools from the hands of local community leaders. Tensions rise as out-of-town reformers and local community members compete for resources and authority. While adult battles reach a fever pitch, high school students Loren and Katura set their own paths to improve schooling for New Orleans.
What readers are saying about The Garden Path:
The Garden Path provides a fascinating look into the school reform movement that swept New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The book raises important questions about the effects of standardized testing as well as the motives of various stakeholders in the school reform debate, and the creative format allows Perry to represent the pros and cons of several positions. The book also dramatizes a school election, and the many factors that affect the candidates’ campaigns, thereby creating telling parallels with real-world politics.—Koritha Mitchell, The Ohio State University
…a redemption story about a group of young people who navigate the difficulties of New Orleans schools, are helped and sometimes hindered by those who love them and care about them, and who must learn to function within a local culture that is rich but which also provides teens many paths to failure and few to success. —Kenneth Strike, Cornell University
About the author:
Andre Perry is the associate dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of New Orleans and the CEO of the Capital One-UNO Charter School Network, a pre-kindergarten through college learning community. He recently served on Mayor-Elect Mitch Landrieu’s Transition Team as the co-chair of the Education Task Force. Perry helped lead a team of local educators and parents to develop a set of recommendations that helped form Mayor Landrieu’s education agenda.
A respected leader in education, Perry’s opinions and editorial analyses have been featured on NPR and CNN. Through his weekly newspaper column in The Louisiana Weekly, Perry provides political commentary on municipal governments, and K-16 leadership and governance in Louisiana. He can also be heard on WWNO 89.9-FM during NPR’s “All Things Considered."
About "The Reading Life":
"The Reading Life" is WWNO 89.9's newest locally-produced program. Host Susan Larson covers the lively New Orleans literary scene, with stories and interviews about new books, local writers and the region's numerous literary events and festivals.
For more information on the book or to request a galley for review, go to www.unopress.org. For more information about the special book release event, please go to www.wwno.org.