Miracle in East Harlem is the story of how the public schools of one of New York City's poorest neighborhoods broke a decades-long pattern of defeat, failure, and frustration to become centers of learning and hope. Seymour Fliegel, a former deputy superintendent of District Four in East Harlem and one of the driving forces behind this renaissance, tells how a core of dedicated teachers and eager students rescued the local schools from their persistent status as the worst in the city. In time, District Four's success would propel superintendent Anthony Alvarado to the chancellorship of the New York City public school system and earn a MacArthur "genius grant" for Deborah Meier, one of its most innovative principals. Fliegel himself has become one of the nation's leading authorities on educational innovation.Central to East Harlem's transformation was the institution of "choice." Since 1982 students and parents in District Four have actively selected the schools they wish to attend, rather than being assigned based on where they live. These new "alternative schools" are smaller and more thematically oriented than traditional schools, and those that fail to attract enough students or meet the district's new standards are disbanded and replaced by other programs. The results have been immediate and striking, all the more so because the neighborhood's student body remains among the poorest school populations in the nation. Indeed, today District Four is a model for other communities, rich and poor alike, and is regularly cited by Republicans and Democrats as the shining example of how choice can work in urban public schools.Through this heartwarming, real-life success story, Fliegel and James MacGuire make a convincing case for public school choice. They show that if it can happen in East Harlem, it can happen anywhere. Read Less