The school I deserve : six young refugees and their fight for equality in America
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 194-206).

"Eighteen-year-old Khadidja Issa, who fled war-torn Sudan at the age of five and lived for nearly a dozen years inside a squalid refugee camp, had just one wish: to attend school. By the time she arrived in Pennsylvania in 2015, she had only a sixth-grade education, just like her mother, whose schooling was also cut short by war. But that was about to change - or so Khadidja thought. She believed she would break the cycle of poverty in her family be becoming the first to graduate high school and go on to college, setting an example for her younger siblings. But she was wrong. She and several other refugees were barred from enrollment by the School District of Lancaster in a rejection that left them dumfounded. Those who pushed back were eventually admitted to a high-discipline alternative school called Phoenix Academy, where students were greeted each morning with daily pat-downs and could be taken to the ground in seconds with a notorious restrain hold. The company that ran the campus had been dogged by allegations of abuse against students for years. And the refugees were almost never offered translation services. They couldn't understand their teachers or name their classes. Still, they were moved from one grade to the next in months, graduating with remarkable speed - but unable to communicate with the outside world. This was no anomaly: the School District of Lancaster, like many others across the nation, had been turning away high-school aged immigrants for years, fearing they would not graduate. The practice might have continued in Lancaster if a spirited refugee advocate hadn't alerted the ACLU and Education Law Center, which filed suit against the school district in the summer of 2016. Issa v. School District of Lancaster was no slam-dunk. The case was decided by a proudly conservative judge against the backdrop of the most contentious presidential race in modern US history, one in which immigrants were regarded with tremendous suspicion. Through this case, Journalist Jo Napolitano offers insight into what happening behind the scenes in American education as it relates to young immigrants - and what it means for our collective future when these children approach adulthood without a solid education."--book jacket.