Posted: Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Matthew Knoester, assistant professor of education at the University of Evansville, has published a new book, Democratic Education in Practice: Inside the Mission Hill School.

Published through Teachers College Press, the book evaluates and describes a high-performing public school in Boston. The book describes the school’s successes — such as a high college attendance rate by its graduates and the portfolio process required for graduation — and also the challenges faced by schools like Mission Hill, including pressure to teach to standardized tests.

“The Mission Hill School is a small, personal, but informal K-8 learning environment where teachers hold high standards for children, who rise to those standards while taking a large amount of ownership over their own learning,” Knoester said. “Even if school leaders elsewhere cannot replicate the school due to various constraints, I hope there are parts that educators will find useful."

“Matthew Knoester has done us an enormous favor by showing us, in detail, what could be — one example of how schools can be the building blocks for democracy, recreating community for all to taste, feel, hear, and see,” said Deborah W. Meier, author of the book’s foreword and a MacArthur Fellow who founded Mission Hill School.

Knoester is a National Board Certified Teacher and former teacher at the Mission Hill School in Boston, as well as schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Olaf College, his Master of Education degree from Harvard University, and his PhD in curriculum and instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Knoester has published articles in journals such as Educational Policy; Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy; Pedagogy, Culture & Society; and Schools: Studies in Education. He is also the editor of the book International Struggles for Critical Democratic Education (Peter Lang Publishing, 2012).

Democratic Education in Practice: Inside the Mission Hill School is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Teachers College Press.

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