The Children Hurricane Katrina Left Behind is named as winner of the 2007 Phillip C. Chinn Book Award

CONTACT:
Alyssa Mangino,
amangino@aacte.org
or 202.478.4596

Washington, D.C. (February 5, 2008) The Multicultural Program Awards Committee of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) has selected The Children Hurricane Katrina Left Behind: Schooling Context, Professional Preparation, and Community Politics as the recipient of the 2007 Phillip C. Chinn Book Award. Dr. Porter Lee Troutman nominated AACTE this honor. The award presentation took place on November 3, 2007 during the 17th Annual International NAME Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

The National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) was founded in 1990 to bring together dividuals from all academic levels and disciplines and from diverse educational institutions, as well as from other organizations, occupations and communities with an interest in multicultural education. NAME is committed to a philosophy of inclusion that embraces the basic tenets of democracy and cultural pluralism. The Phillip C. Chinn Book Award is granted annually to celebrate innovative individuals and institutions that have made outstanding contributions to Multicultural Education.

Although Hurricane Katrina resulted in the severe destruction of New Orleans’ schools, even prior to Katrina
statistics emerged about the educational neglect of Louisiana’s African American schoolchildren. This prompted an opportunity and a challenge to transform schools and society for the good of the entire United States. Edited by Dr. Sharon P. Robinson and Dr. M. Christopher Brown II and published by Peter Lang Publishing Group, The Children Hurricane Katrina Left Behind addresses what is essential for rebuilding urban schools in New Orleans as well as the nation, engaging social events and educational policy as they relate to the preparation of professional educators and the future of America’s schools. As Linda Darling-Hammond notes in her Foreword, each chapter speaks “powerfully and poignantly to centuries of educational neglect and failed social policies and to what we can and must do about it.”

“When Sharon and I decided to launch this important initiative, we were focused on using the challenging school contexts of both pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans to develop transformative ideas about what every state, county, or municipality could do to improve urban and hard-to-staff schools,” said Dr. M. Christopher Brown II. “We felt that the school systems of post-Katrina New Orleans offered a new and different palette upon which to paint fresh images of successful schools without respect to race, economics, geography, or politics.”

For more information on this AACTE Award, please contact Alyssa Mangino, AACTE communications
manager, at amangino@aacte.org or 202.478. 4596.