Chapter One: How To Fail (And How Not To) Summary and Analysis

Two women, Nadine Burke Harris and Elizabeth Dozier, were born in very different circumstances. Burke Harris, the daughter of wealthy Jamaican immigrants, was raised in a well-off, mostly white neighborhood, while Dozier, the unlikely product of an illicit relationship between a nun and a prison inmate, was raised on her mother's meager sole income. Despite their vastly different upbringings, Burke Harris and Dozier share the same goal: to help young people in need. Burke Harris became a pediatrician and opened a clinic in one of the poorest neighborhoods in San Francisco, while Dozier became the principal of Chicago's Christian Fenger High School, one of the most troubled high schools in the United States. While many troubled schools in the United States must beg for funding...