Depicted variously as heroes, villains, or victims, America’s teachers find themselves at the center of a sometimes ugly policy debate.  Yet while politicians, reformers, and pundits contribute to the cacophony that serves as our national conversation about education, the voices of those who daily teach our children are barely heard above the noise. 

Schooled: Ordinary, Extraordinary Teaching in an Age of Change (Teachers College Press, 2015) provides the views of working teachers on many key educational problems under debate—student motivation and home challenges, college and career readiness, and the achievement gap among them—and many of the controversial solutions being applied to these, including revamped teacher evaluations, curricular standardization, and increased testing and data collection. 

For Schooled, anthropologist Catherine Lutz and high school teacher Anne Lutz Fernandez traveled the country to meet a range of educators—in traditional public schools to charters to homeschool; early in careers and near retirement; in city, town, suburb, and country—on the frontlines of teaching across diverse contexts.  What they learned about teaching and learning in this historical moment provides critical insights for educators and anyone interested in American education.