African American educators shaped a role for themselves in the larger civil rights movement by striving for inclusion, on equal footing, in the National Education Association (NEA). This book explores the relationship between the NEA, the nation’s largest teacher organization, and the predominately black American Teachers Association, and illustrates how African American educators helped to redefine the NEA’s core ideology to include the support of policies, practice, and politics that promoted educational equity for children and educators who have been historically marginalized. Examining heated debates in African American communities and in the NEA, and the immediate and long-term effects of inclusion on educators and public school children, this book reveals teacher associations as something more than labor unions and educators as activists for educational equity, while it documents the perils, disappointments, and advantages of professional cohesion. The book’s documentation of leadership in particularly challenging settings fills a void in literature for teacher preparation and educational leadership programs.

The Author: Carol F. Karpinski is Assistant Professor at the Peter Sammartino School of Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University and the Director of the Master of Arts in Teaching program. Her research examines teacher unions, African American educators, and educational leadership. She has an Ed.D. in administration and supervision from Rutgers University, and her articles have appeared in Urban Education, The Journal of Educational Administration, and The Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership.