“Whether in rural, urban, or suburban areas, everyone in education today needs help guiding disadvantaged students, whose problems can overwhelm even the most dedicated school staffs. Project GRAD offers that assistance.”
—From the Foreword by Donna Peterson, Superintendent, Kenai Peninsula Borough School District

“Whatever It Takes offers practical insight and inspiration for educators, policymakers, business and community leaders seeking to work together for successful school reform. Holland includes real stories that remind us of what is at stake and how we must believe in the resilience and potential of poor and minority students if they are to believe in themselves.”
—Patricia Wasley, Dean, College of Education, University of Washington

“A fascinating account of Jim Ketelsen's heroic efforts to address one of the critical issues of our time - public school reform. Through her candid treatment of the Project GRAD story, Holland shows how the program is gaining ground and winning converts by helping struggling students and beleaguered schools close the achievement gap.”
—Beverly L. Hall, Superintendent, Atlanta Public Schools

“We should read this book carefully if the promise of higher education for all is to become more than mere empty rhetoric.”
—Julian M. Edgoose, University of Puget Sound

This timely volume examines one of the nation’s largest and most promising urban school reform initiatives, Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams). This extraordinary program, originally designed for state-level application in Texas, has been successfully adapted to many other locations across the United States. Told through intimate narratives of students and educators, this compelling story:

• Examines a replicable reform model that has transformed dangerous, inner-city schools into functional learning communities where student achievement rates have soared.
• Focuses on the national expansion of Project GRAD, presenting a method of reform that creates good schools by fitting its framework over existing structures rather than abandoning failing schools.
• Describes all of the obstacles and tensions that surface when the worlds of business, philanthropy, and public education converge on one project.
• Offers concrete solutions to the chronic problems of urban schools struggling with poverty and the incessant demands of state and federal mandates.

Holly Holland is the former editor of National Middle School Association's Middle Ground magazine and the author or co-author of four other books about education reform.