The School I Deserve: Six Young Refugees and Their Fight for Equality in America

by Jo Napolitano

Overview

Uncovers the key civil rights battle that immigrant children fought alongside the ACLU to ensure equal access to education within a xenophobic nation

Journalist Jo Napolitano delves into the landmark case in which the School District of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was sued for refusing to admit older, non-English speaking refugees and sending them to a high-discipline alternative school. In a legal battle that mirrors that of the Little Rock Nine and Brown v. Board of Education, 6 brave refugee students fought alongside the ACLU and Education Law Center to demand equal access. The School I Deserve illuminates the lack of support immigrant and refugee children face in our public school system and presents a hopeful future where all children can receive an equal education regardless of race, ethnicity, or their country of origin.

One of the students, Khadidja Issa, fled the horrific violence in war-torn Sudan with the hope of a safer life in the United States, where she could enroll in school and eventually become a nurse. Instead, she was turned away by the School District of Lancaster before she was eventually enrolled in one of its alternative schools, a campus run by a for-profit company facing multiple abuse allegations. Napolitano follows Khadidja as she joins the lawsuit as a plaintiff in the Issa v. School District of Lancaster case, a legal battle that took place right before Donald Trump’s presidential election, when immigrants and refugees were maligned on a national stage. The fiery week-long showdown between the ACLU and the school district was ultimately decided by a conservative judge who issued a shocking ruling with historic implications. The School I Deserve brings to light this crucial and underreported case, which paved the way to equal access to education for countless immigrants and refugees to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807024980
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	04/20/2021
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	680,038
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Jo Napolitano is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years of experience at the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Newsday. She has written on many topics, but public education remains her primary focus. She first spotted the trend of public schools turning away immigrant children in 2014, when she was a senior reporter for Newsday. Months of research showed the trend was nationwide and won Napolitano a Spencer Education Fellowship to Columbia University to write this book. Connect with her on Twitter @Jo_Napolitano and on Instagram @jonapolitano.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
From Colombia to Columbia in Forty Short Years

CHAPTER 1
The Longest Goodbyes

CHAPTER 2
A New World

CHAPTER 3
Beyond the Horses and Buggies

CHAPTER 4
The Uninvited

CHAPTER 5
Handle with Care

CHAPTER 6
Not on My Watch

CHAPTER 7
Big Leagues

CHAPTER 8
Not in Our Names

CHAPTER 9
This Land Is Your Land

CHAPTER 10
UnDACAmented

CHAPTER 11
Opening Arguments

CHAPTER 12
In Their Own Words

CHAPTER 13
Caps and Gowns

CHAPTER 14
Tough Crowd

CHAPTER 15
Disconnected

CHAPTER 16
A Missed Opportunity

CHAPTER 17
Granted

CHAPTER 18
Higher Ground

CHAPTER 19
A Room of Her Own

Acknowledgments
Notes

Editorial Reviews

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.)

Publishers Weekly

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

From the Publisher

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

Library Journal

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.

Kirkus Reviews

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

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

JUNE 2021 - AudioFile