LIVE TO SEE THE DAY

A chronicle of three adolescents living in poverty in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood.

In this follow-up to Schools on Trial, Goyal, a former senior policy adviser for Bernie Sanders, brings readers into the lives of Ryan, Emmanuel, and Giancarlo, students at the “alternative ‘last chance’ high school called El Centro de Estudiantes.” Given his previous publications, and the school as the connection between his main subjects, readers might expect education to be the dominant theme. Instead, the author intertwines topics like truancy, school closures, dropouts, and nefarious for-profit programs for students with disciplinary issues with discussions of mental illness and the lack of treatment in impoverished communities, Philadelphia’s many socioeconomic problems, the nomadic life that poverty often requires, and the particular challenges facing LGBTQ+ youth living in poverty. These are all important issues, and Goyal is an undeniably compassionate guide, but his cultural commentary doesn’t quite address any one issue with enough depth. The author remains focused on the teens who make their way through El Centro, and their stories are powerful, both heartbreaking and checkered with hope. The personal narratives lend intimate context to numerous systemic issues, and the threads about Emmanuel are particularly original and memorable. However, Goyal does not offer a truly clear lens through which to understand his main characters’ stories: Has El Centro saved them, allowed other schools to shirk their responsibilities, or served simply as a checked box? Perhaps the uncertainty of that answer is the point, but many readers may be left wanting more. One can expect that as his academic career matures and his research about and relationships with his subjects deepen, Goyal will be a forceful contributor to the work on many of the devastatingly and frustratingly intertwined topics he is only able to touch on in this book.

A well-intentioned, straightforward narrative that teases the complexity of a series of societal issues.