From the reauthorization and possible impending repeal of the No Child Left Behind Act in the next presidential administration, to the Supreme Court’s recent education pronouncements involving race in K-12 and higher education, to the mounting concerns regarding school finance and testing, education issues are making headlines around the country. This compendium of works by nationally distinguished contributors who hail from a broad variety of disciplines is a unique reader that explores educational law through the interrelated fields of “critical race education,” sociology, civil rights, pedagogical theory and law.

This critical reader of scholarly articles, essays and critiques explores the intractable issues in the landscape of educational equality including school finance, special education, affirmative action, desegregation, curricular reform and bilingual education through the prism of race, ethnicity, language, disability, socioeconomic status, sex and gender.

Contributors include William Kaplan, Preston Green, Bruce Baker, Angela Onwuachi Willig, Verna Williams, Victoria Dodd, Molly O’Brien and others, with a foreword by T.K. Daniels.

Written by and for educators and policymakers, Our Promise is an ideal seminar text or companion piece for education, civil rights, sociology, economics and race oriented interdisciplinary courses. An indispensible classroom tool for comprehending policy discussions, Our Promise is also well suited for adoption in undergraduate and graduate education schools and public policy administration programs across the nation.

“This edited volume provides a thought-provoking collection of papers by expert legal scholars and serves as a reminder of the extensive work that is yet to be accomplished in the evaluation of educational policy. The authors encourage us to take a second look at the research surrounding the topics of equality in education and urge us to examine the benchmarks of progress so as to gauge next steps and possible new directions in educational achievement.

“In a sense, this is a compilation of works that serve as a reminder that the nation’s growth and its history will be measured not by its crepuscular and steganographic support of educating a select few in education, but, instead, by establishing the bright light of accountability and our commitment to every student by advocating for the full embodiment of equality in education.” — Excerpt from the Foreword by Philip T.K. Daniel, J.D., Ed.D., William and Marie Flesher Professor of Educational Administration, Adjunct Professor of Law, The Ohio State University