A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind (1999)

This was required reading in one of my Sociology courses. I liked the story. The character, Cedric Jennings, overcame tremendous obstacles as he struggled through to achieve well at a typical, poor inner city school. When Cedric was accepted at Brown University, he soon discovered how ill-prepared he was for college, despite his impressive performance and GPA in high school.

Sadly, his story is not an uncommon outcome of the inequalities that persist in today's American public educational system.