JUNE 2021 - AudioFile
Dani Cervone narrates journalist Jo Napolitano's thorough examination of an often overlooked area of American prejudice—unequal access to education among refugees, in this case in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Napolitano tells the story of what happens when a Sudanese refugee and five of her peers try to enroll in high school. Their public school district refuses them entry due to their age—they are past 18—and refers them instead to an institution more like a juvenile corrections facility than a school. Cervone's tone is even and straightforward throughout; she does not differentiate the various sources. The well-organized text takes listeners through the students’ victory in court. F.M.R.G. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
02/15/2021
Journalist Napolitano debuts with a comprehensive look at a 2016 lawsuit filed by six refugee students against their Lancaster, Pa., school district for discrimination. Denied entry into the district’s main high school and placed in a “high-discipline ‘alternative’ school” run by a private company, the students, all age 17 or older, received insufficient ESL instruction and endured intimidating security measures. Napolitano details how the plaintiffs escaped the traumatic circumstances of their birth countries, including Sudan and Somalia, only to encounter a rising tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric as President Trump took office, and recounts courtroom testimony from school administrators, teachers, and resettlement workers that reveals the tension between the district’s focus on graduation rates and the students’ desire to learn. The federal court’s decision in favor of the students, according to Napolitano, was both a surprise, given that the judge was a “self-described conservative who abhorred government overreach,” and a triumph of “fairness, equity, and the promise of newly adopted country.” Laden with compassion and detailed insights into the practices that threaten equal access to education, this is an eye-opening account of a precedent-setting case. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
Napolitano retraces Khadidja’s history with great dexterity . . . Backed by research, profiles, court testimonies, and interviews with teachers, refugees, and immigrant advocates, the book calls into question the vital essence of education and why, even in this modern era of accountability, these injustices persist . . . An eyebrow-raising report on education that is both enraging and heartbreaking.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Laden with compassion and detailed insights into the practices that threaten equal access to education, this is an eye-opening account of a precedent-setting case.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Napolitano’s book should be the next step for people horrified by the plight of refugees, undocumented people, and unaccompanied minors.”
—Booklist
“Meticulously researched and compassionate, The School I Deserve is a fierce defense of refugees’ right to a quality education.”
—Shelf Awareness
“Napolitano’s compelling story of teenage refugees denied the same high school education as their Pennsylvania peers is both heartbreaking and infuriating. It’s an intimate story, and yet Napolitano’s exhaustive research also underscores the consequences of inequality. This book represents a historical moment as important as Brown v. Board of Education, and every democracy-loving American needs to read it.”
—Amy Ellis Nutt, author of Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family
“Napolitano’s The School I Deserve—and the legal case it chronicles—is a clarion call for America to live up to its ideals, as a place that embraces those fleeing hunger and persecution.”
—Alex Kotlowitz, author of An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago
“Khadidja Issa, a young Sudanese refugee who arrived with her family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with aspirations to become a nurse, had to sue her own school district to be admitted because, at eighteen, she was deemed too old to learn there. This little-known story of her titanic and ultimately triumphant battle, along with that of five other teenage refugees, for the education they deserved should be taught alongside the epic struggles of Ruby Bridges and the Little Rock Nine in the civil rights era. No racist mobs blocked Khadidja and her fellow refugees’ access to education, but the callously indifferent practices of her local school district had a similar effect. This book is an important contribution to the ongoing examination of inequality in America.”
—Dale Russakoff, author of The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools?
Library Journal
04/01/2021
In August 2016, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Lancaster, PA, school district on behalf of two Sudanese refugees, Khadidja Issa and Mahamed Hassan, and four other immigrant students, for failing to provide the quality education required by law. Napolitano, a longtime journalist specializing in public education issues, tells the stories of Khadidja and Mahamed with care. The two students wanted to attend Lancaster's highly regarded McCaskey High School, but instead they were assigned to the for-profit Phoenix Academy, an institution that offered few learning opportunities for non-native English speakers. They were not allowed to take books out of the building and were subject to daily pat-downs. A bullying culture, inflamed by corporal punishment, prevailed. Napolitano discusses the students' lives in Sudan and the dangers of that many refugees and immigrants face in the U.S. The most illuminating chapters describe the courtroom action and introduce Judge Edward G. Smith and Vic Walczak and Eric Rothschild, the attorneys advocating for the students. VERDICT This uplifting story, which played out during bleak years for refugees in the U.S., will resonate with readers concerned about immigration and education policy, and those engaged by courtroom narratives.—Karl Helicher, formerly with Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA
JUNE 2021 - AudioFile
Dani Cervone narrates journalist Jo Napolitano's thorough examination of an often overlooked area of American prejudice—unequal access to education among refugees, in this case in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Napolitano tells the story of what happens when a Sudanese refugee and five of her peers try to enroll in high school. Their public school district refuses them entry due to their age—they are past 18—and refers them instead to an institution more like a juvenile corrections facility than a school. Cervone's tone is even and straightforward throughout; she does not differentiate the various sources. The well-organized text takes listeners through the students’ victory in court. F.M.R.G. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2021-02-10
Refugees fight for education equality in a Pennsylvania school system.
In a sleek, knowledgeable study, award-winning journalist Napolitano focuses primarily on the experience of a young Sudanese teenager. As the eldest daughter, 18-year-old Khadidja Issa had high hopes and dreams when her family immigrated to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, after escaping war-torn Sudan in 2015. Though she was told that her education would begin at the local high school, when she attempted to enroll, she was told she had aged out and to seek employment instead even though her younger siblings were all accepted at their respective grade schools. Other refugees received the same judgment. When Khadidja and other interested teens pressed the Pennsylvania school system further, they were given the option of being deferred to Phoenix Academy, a notoriously authoritarian, juvenile detention–like facility with a nasty reputation as a school for “at-risk youth.” Frightened and fearful of the academy, Khadidja and her fellow refugee students decided to fight the district to afford them the proper education they deserved. Championed by a driven caseworker, an incensed and determined Khadidja, and a pro bono attorney, the ACLU and other litigants challenged the Lancaster school district’s sketchy admissions policies in a class-action case that rocked the region. Napolitano retraces Khadidja’s history with great dexterity, detailing the family’s terror-stricken homeland and their time at a decrepit refugee camp in Chad. Through their struggle, the author paints a broader portrait of the unfortunately common xenophobia that refugees have always faced in the U.S., prejudice that increased considerably during the Trump administration. Backed by research, profiles, court testimonies, and interviews with teachers, refugees, and immigrant advocates, the book calls into question the vital essence of education and why, even in this modern era of accountability, these injustices persist.
An eyebrow-raising report on education that is both enraging and heartbreaking.
