Stand for the Best: What I Learned after Leaving My Job as CEO of H&R Block to Become a Teacher and Founder of an Inner-City Charter School

by Thomas M. Bloch

Overview

Thirteen years ago, Tom Bloch was CEO of H&R Block, the groundbreaking tax organization. The son of the company’s founder, he was a happily married 41-year-old executive, but something was missing from his life. After a nineteen-year career at the company, Bloch resigned his position to become a math teacher in an impoverished inner-city section of Kansas City. Stand for the Best reveals Bloch’s struggles to make a difference for his marginalized students and how he eventually co-founded a successful charter school, University Academy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780470188965
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	07/28/2008
Series:	The Jossey-Bass Education Series
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

THOMAS M. BLOCH, former CEO of H&R Block and currently a middle school math teacher and president of the board at University Academy, has been involved in a variety of education initiatives since he changed careers. He and his wife, Mary, founded the Youth Service Alliance of Greater Kansas City to encourage and recognize outstanding community service through school-based programs. He is also a founding board member of the Kansas City Foundation for Higher Education, a trustee of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, President of the Endowment Fund for the Henry W. Bloch School of Business at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and chairman of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. He returned to H&R Block in 2000 as a member of the board of directors.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

1 Off the Block.

2 Back to School.

3 Into the Trenches.

4 On the Learning Curve.

5 A Question of Character.

6 A New Kind of Urban School.

7 Great Expectations.

8 Making the Grade.

9 Moving the School.

10 Real Heroes.

11 A Duty to Dream.

12 The Next Urban Teacher.

13 A Calling.

14 Midterm Exam.

Epilogue.

Appendix.

Notes.

Selected Web Sites.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

"The lessons from Mr. Bloch's journey — on the importance of courage, risk-taking, passion and service in our lives — are valuable to us all as citizens, leaders, social-change agents and human beings." (The Washington Times, October 2008)

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