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Eye on UMSL: Faculty authors
Eye on UMSL: Faculty authors

Information systems Professor Mary Lacity talks with Larry Frederick, UMSL’s chief information officer, about his book at the annual Faculty Author Reception.

Eye on UMSL: Faculty authors

Information systems Professor Mary Lacity talks with Larry Frederick, UMSL’s chief information officer, about his book at the annual Faculty Author Reception.

Eye on UMSL: Faculty authors

Information systems Professor Mary Lacity talks with Larry Frederick, UMSL’s chief information officer, about his book at the annual Faculty Author Reception.

MORE IN books

Retired scholar advocates K-12 reform

Kent Farnsworth, a longtime educator, decided last year that changes needed to be made in the way American children are educated.

“During a trip to Helena, Ark., I stopped at a charter school, Delta College Prep, that is doing extraordinary work with some of the most economically challenged students in the country,” Farnsworth said. “As I was driving back to St. Louis, I kept thinking, why can’t any school district do the same thing, even if it isn’t a charter school – and then (I) realized it could.”

Farnsworth recently retired as the Mary Ann Lee Endowed Professor for Community College Leadership Studies in the College of Education at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. He has published a new book, “Grassroots School Reform: A Community Guide to Developing Globally Competitive Students.” It argues that significant school reform in the United States will not happen if left to national or state policy makers, but must be a community-led initiative.