Multiplication Is for White People

Lisa Delpit's paradigm-shifting first book Other People's Childrenwon a Critics' Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association, Choicemagazine's Outstanding Academic book award, was voted one of Teacher Magazine's "great books," and has gone on to sell a quarter-million copies since its publication in 1996. Since then we have seen No Child Left Behind, an obsession with standardized testing, the creation of alternative teacher certification paths, the charter school movement, and a host of other attempts to reform our nation's public education system. Two things we have not seen are an elimination of the achievement gap between white and African American children-or a new book by Lisa Delpit. Sure to be an instant classic, Multiplication Is for White Peopleexplores a wide range of little-known research that conclusively demonstrates that "there is no achievement gap at birth" and argues that poor teaching, negative stereotypes about African American intellectual inferiority, and a curriculum that still does not adequately connect to poor children's lives all conspire against the education prospects of poor children of color. In a major new book for her many impatient fans and admirers, Delpit brings the topic of educating other people's children into the twenty-first century.