Am I My Brother’s Keeper? provides a powerful cautionary tale about the challenges involved in enacting large-scale educational change. The book, chronicling the Expanded Success Initiative (ESI), a four-year study focused on improving the educational outcomes of 15,000 Black and Latinx males in New York City public high schools, covers what worked, what didn’t, and what we can learn from the experience.

The ESI model, a precursor to President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper, highlights the ways that school districts can embed educational equity into the principles and policies that guide their work with students, in contrast to implementing stand-alone initiatives that may come and go. Through the voices of students, teachers, and administrators, the book informs the implementation of other large-scale district-community partnerships designed to improve opportunities and outcomes for young people who have systematically been denied both. Most critically, the book provides policy, practice, and research recommendations to inform the next generation of work with this student population.

As sustained protests across the United States call attention to the ravages of systemic racism, Am I My Brother’s Keeper? highlights concrete steps that school districts can take to confront racist structures and support young people of color.