Acknowledgments; Author's Note; I. First Year ; One-The School Beside the Cemetery; Two-Teacher Boot Camp; Three-First Day; Four-The Plot of Marigolds; Five-When The State Walks In; Six-Barely Passing; Seven-Happy Hour; Eight-Do Over; Nine-Disarming the Alarm; II. Second Year ; Ten-The Revolving Principals; Eleven-Killing the Kitten; Twelve-Reading Powhitetrash; Thirteen-Northern Exposure; Fourteen-Elisabeth Shue Loves Us; Fifteen-One Hundred and Forty; Epilogue
Summary
Heather Kirn Lanier joined Teach For America (TFA), a program that thrusts eager but inexperienced college graduates into America's most impoverished areas to teach, asking them to do whatever is necessary to catch their disadvantaged kids up to the rest of the nation. With little more than a five-week teacher boot camp and the knowledge that David Simon referred to her future school as "The Terrordome," the altruistic and naive Lanier devoted herself to attaining the program's goals but met obstacles on all fronts
