The Garden Path: The Miseducation of a City

by Andre Perry

"The Garden Path is about views of education reform from inside and outside the schoolhouse, which is the book's epicenter. The book narrates education within the lives of schooling's primary students, families, teachers and administrators.It also critically examines this latest wave of reform using the New Orleans post-Katrina context as a stage to examine different experiences and positions in the contentious battles around education. This fictional narrative is primarily a story of two high school students' (Loren and Katura) journey to college and an administrator's (Dr. Isaac Boyd) efforts to get them there"--Foreword, p. [11].

Genres: Education

266 pages, Paperback

First published March 16, 2011

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really am very glad I read this book. The author takes a fiction look at the education system in New Orleans post-Katrina. Because he chose to fictionalize the situation - a situation he clearly has real world experience with doing something about - he is able to create conversations that I found very helpful in the mouths of his characters. It was one of the more helpful, insightful - albeit, not very analytical - books on urban education in this country, I’ve read. I got this book because of an article he wrote that appeared in the Washington Post which talked about not blaming parents for all the problems in urban schools. He shares the blame all around in this book.

[Koritha Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Garden Path provides a fascinating look into the school reform movement that swept New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In this well paced example of creative non-fiction, Andre Perry offers the perspective of a highly educated, powerful man and a spirited teenaged boy. Dr. Boyd is the CEO of the University of New Orleans Charter Network and Loren Wise is a ninth-grader who becomes class president…and so much more. As readers accompany each of these characters on their personal journeys, we get to know others fairly well, and Perry shows himself capable of developing convincing characters, whether or not they resemble his protagonists in terms of gender, age, behavior, or values.

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. As importantly, Perry maximizes the freedom of creative non-fiction by working to broaden conceptions of manhood and masculinity. The reader is encouraged to think about—rather than simply accept—society's rules about what men and boys should and should not do, think, and feel. Indeed, the book encourages readers to consider how unbalanced those rules can be. Because our education system plays a key role in socialization, Perry's insistence upon grappling with gender expectations confirms his understanding of the high stakes of his profession.

More than anything, The Garden Path entertains while provoking thought. It is a real page-turner that is sometimes solemn, sometimes funny, but constantly makes you raise an eyebrow and do what the book suggests real education inspires: think more critically.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Public schools are going the way of prisons: privatization for the purpose of profit, not public good. Read this...a thought provoking, semi-fictionalized way to see how--despite people's best efforts--public schools are being systematically dismantled in neighborhoods across America.

[Matt]

There are several characterizations in this book that I did not fully agree with.