Locke response

In response to my last email about Alexander Russo's new book about Green Dot's turnaround of LA's infamous Locke High School, Stray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors: Fighting for the Soul of America's Toughest High School (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1118001753/tilsoncapitalpar), Justin Coppedge writes:

 

I was particularly heartened by your mention of the review of Russo's book. I taught Biology at Locke during the summer of 2007 as part of my TFA Institute training. The photos of the main entrance instantly took me back to late June of that year when I first saw Locke through the window of the school bus we took each day from CSU-Long Beach. It is exciting to know that transformative change is underway there to the benefit of students. I'm in my fourth year teaching at my original TFA placement school in St. Louis and it is very similar (though on a smaller scale) to the "old" Locke. While unfortunately we have been unable to make the substantive changes that have begun to turn Locke around, hearing of their success makes me hopeful the same can happen here.