A summer school kids actually want to attend

When I was a freshman in college, I stumbled upon this report that showed the economic consequences of not acting to improve our educational system. As a business student, I was initially intrigued by the cost savings of closing this gap. When I realized "the kids" referenced were me and my childhood friends, I grew frustrated with the system that was oppressing millions of children every single day. It inspired my quest into education and ultimately the premise by which I founded Practice Makes Perfect, which was to prove that all children — regardless of their race or socioeconomic status — had equal potential to compete intellectually in our society.

I found Patricia Burch's writing during my junior year of college. After reading the book, it debunked one of the biggest misconceptions that I originally had about low-income public schools: they have no money. Instead, I saw how inefficiently billions of dollars were wasted on our primary and secondary school systems every single year. It proved two things to me: 1) Throwing money at problems doesn’t solve them, and 2) There was money out there to improve our education system. This later gave the confidence I needed to turn down full-time job offers upon graduation and work to understand how to unlock the financial resources that existed in the system to improve it for kids attending urban schools.

Joel Klein was the NYC public school system's chancellor for the majority of Mayor Bloomberg's tenure. This book gives a real account of one individual's attempt to fix an entire school system with mayoral support and hundreds of millions of dollars in philanthropy. Klein gives an inside look at the programs and policies they tested during the administration and proved to me how, in many ways, long-term systemic change cannot come through politics. At the end, Klein makes a plea or call to action that urges us to address the disparities in education because the biggest threat to our national security will be the war that breaks out between the haves and have-nots if the inequality continues to persist.