"Excellence Through Equity" is an inspiring look at how real-world educators are creating schools where all students are able to thrive. In these schools, educators understand that equity is not about treating all children the same. They are deeply committed to ensuring that each student receives what he or she individually needs to develop their full potential--and succeed. To help educators with what can at times be a difficult and challenging journey, Blankstein and Noguera frame the book with five guiding principles of Courageous Leadership: (1) Getting to your core; (2) Making organizational meaning; (3) Ensuring constancy and consistency of purpose; (4) Facing the facts and your fears; and (5) Building sustainable relationships. They further emphasize that the practices are grounded in three important areas of research that are too often disregarded: (1) child development, (2) neuroscience, and (3) environmental influences on child development and learning. Following a Dedication, Foreword--by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Acknowledgments, this book is organized into the following sections and chapters: Part I: For Every Student: Introduction: Achieving Excellence Through Equity for Every Student (Alan M. Blankstein and Pedro Noguera); (1) Brockton High School, Brockton, Massachusetts (Susan Szachowicz); and (2) The Path to Equity: Whole System Change (Michael Fullan). Part II: Getting to Your Core: (3) Building a School of Opportunity Begins With Detracking (Carol Corbett Burris); (4) The Voices and Hearts of Youth: Transformative Power of Equity in Action (Linda Harper); and (5) Empowering Students and Teachers Through Performance-Based Assessment (Avram Barlowe and Ann Cook). Part III: Making Organizational Meaning: (6) Human Capital as a Lever for Districtwide Change (Ann Blakeney Clark); (7) Personalized Learning (Allison Zmuda); (8) Who Wants a Standardized Child Anyway? Treat Everyone the Same--Differently--(Dennis Littky); and (9) Equitable Ways to Teach Science to Emergent Bilinguals and Immigrant Youth (Estrella Olivares-Orellana). Part IV: Ensuring Constancy and Consistency of Purpose: (10) The Journey Toward Equity and Excellence: The Massachusetts Experience (Paul Reville). Part V: Facing the Facts and Your Fears: (11) Focusing on Equity Propelled Us From Good to Great: Abington School District's Opportunity to Learn Initiative (Amy F. Sichel and Ann H. Bacon); and (12) Equity and Achievement in the Elementary School: How We Redesigned Our Math Instruction to Increase Achievement for Every Child (Darlene Berg). Part VI: Building Sustainable Relationships: (13) A Journey Toward Equity and Excellence for All Students in Chesterfield (Marcus J. Newsome); and (14) Equity Through Expanded Learning Time (Lucy N. Friedman and Saskia Traill). Part VII: Coda: (15) The Iniquity of Inequity: And Some International Clues About Ways to Address (Andy Hargreaves). A section about the editors, a section about the contributors, and Related ASCD Resources: Excellence Through Equity are included.