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

No matter where they come from, the young immigrants who have poured into the United States in recent years have one thing in common: They all want an education. And the law is on their side. No child can be denied admission to the nation’s public schools based on their immigration status, yet many are turned away or shunted into inferior programs that rarely lead to a diploma. The School I Deserve: Six Young Refugees and Their Fight for Equality in America brings to life the civil rights battle waged across the country on their behalf, focusing on a single case fought in federal court inside the swing-state of Pennsylvania on the eve of the 2016 presidential election. The outcome would shape not only the lives of the courageous young refugees who stood before a conservative Republican judge pleading for America to live up to its promise, but for those who would come behind them.

“Laden with compassion and detailed insights into the practices that threaten equal access to education, [The School I Deserve] is an eye-opening account of a precedent-setting case.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Jo 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, winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize

“An eyebrow-raising report on education that is both enraging and heartbreaking.”

—Kirkus

“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

“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. 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?