This book describes how disaffection is endemic in education systems in the west. It affects middle class young people as it does the working class, white and black. It is there because schools are not meeting the needs of many of our children. Instead they are alienating places which impose a curriculum for which many lack a literacy, and a regime which strips away individuality and expression. It's no wonder that so many walk out the door and never come back. And it's no wonder that youth crime, apathy and unemployment are the problems they are. This author examines some American models in the quest to tackle disaffection. Because of the sheer degradation of parts of the US public school system, certain educationalists have taken radical steps, successfully changing schools to meet the needs of their at risk pupils. The text describes innovative projects and schools in the US as well as in the UK and Europe. There are interviews and case studies of children who have been inspired to learn after having given up on their schools and accounts by educationalists of their journeys of discovering how to knock down the barriers to learning.