Putting my Mind and Heart to Educational Equity: Memoirs of an Advocate

by Peter Roos

Overview

From the Foreword by Kenji Hakuta and Diana Mercado-Garcia:  

"As a civil rights lawyer, Peter Roos has been something of an artist, painting on this canvas with the lawyerly instruments available to him, getting involved in key interpretations of the equal protection clauses of the Constitution and civil rights laws, especially in how meaningful access is granted through instruction in a language that students can understand. But with the sensitivity of an artist, he has worked the complex environment with an understanding of the power and limitations of his tools combined with a fine sense of whom to push, when, and how. 
"Roos’s awareness of the context and attention to nuance constitute the basis of his effectiveness, and the lessons he shares will benefit those in every field, not just law or education. His heart and intellect together helped him to understand the perspective of the court, the defendant, and the broader society in order to win justice for the underserved. The book at times overflows with his joy for the work and reveals Roos’s ample gusto for life. His life has been an adventure full of love for his wife, Emma, and for his many close colleagues, particularly Roger Rice (of Rice/Roos and Roos/Rice fame). Roos is living proof of the difference that one person can make within this complex world. This memoir shows us how he did it. "

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781648718595
Publisher:	Center for Applied Linguistics
Publication date:	02/08/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	124
File size:	4 MB

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Personal Awakening: The Birth of the California Rural Legal Assistance

2. Los Angeles, 1968–1970

3. tacking Multiple Forms of Discrimination: The Western Center on Law and Poverty Years, 1970–1972

4. Moving On: Center for Law and Education at Harvard

5. MALDEF, 1976–1982

6. Chicano Desegregation

7. The Right of Undocumented Students to Schooling: Plyler v. Doe

8. The META Years

9. Bilingual Education Redux

10. Continued Legal Battles

11. Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

Peter D. Roos's memoir brings to mind many tough memories of our valiant Chican@ fight for quality schooling through legal efforts for desegregation, bilingual education, equal resource allocations, and other institutional changes in public K-12 systems and higher education. He was, and still continues to be, an important legal and political warrior in these battles for better schooling access and participation on behalf of Chican@, Latin@, and other language minorities. These memoirs are important for today's generation of legal and civic advocates, not so much for the legal record, victories, and precedents of his litigation, but how they fit into the legal and political strategies for the changes that were sought, how he entertained different arguments before the courts, and why he chose those that were put forward, all in collaboration with other groups and organizations. These greatly narrated personal accounts are not to be found in law review articles, court briefs, judicial opinions, or educational and language legal and policy histories, but should be read by those interested and active in socially just institutional changes in schools. --Reynaldo F. Macias, Founding Chair of the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies and the César E. Chávez Center for Interdisciplinary Instruction

Peter Roos's account of his four decades of advocacy for educational equity for language minority and immigrant children is both unique and inspirational. It is a memoir, but because Roos is who he is, it is also a chronicle of some key battles for civil rights in education and an advocate's guide to engaging the U.S. court system in the continuing fight for equal educational protection and treatment of all students, irrespective of immigration status, language background, or country of origin. This might sound like a heavy read, but it is anything but a dry or dusty accounting of legal issues in education. Rather, as Kenji Hakuta remarks in the preface, Roos's story "at times overflows with his joy for the work and reveals [his] ample gusto for life." It's a book that, once started, you will not put down until you are done reading it. And then you will read it again. --Lily Wong Fillmore, Professor Emerita, Graduate School of Education, The University of California, Berkeley

From the Publisher