“In privatizing New Orleans’ public schools, education officials and charter school advocates labeled them completely dysfunctional, saying they failed generations of children. Buras disproves this baseless claim and the accusation that Black teachers were the prime reason for the system’s failure. Dispelling such allegations, she documents the illustrious history of a Black high school, revealing its notable achievements. What We Stand to Lose is a must-read and a disturbing example of the marginalization of Black people and their institutions that has plagued America for centuries.”—Raynard Sanders, coauthor of Twenty-First-Century Jim Crow Schools: The Impact of Charters on Public Education and executive director of the Claiborne Avenue History Project

“In the pages of this book, Kristen Buras bears witness to the vibrancy of a community school in Black New Orleans. Written with humility as well as brute honesty, she reveals the state-sanctioned death of an institution that affirmed life for young people and their families. It is a story that must be told and can never be forgotten.”—Dave Stovall, author of Born Out of Struggle: Critical Race Theory, School Creation, and the Politics of Interruption

“Education is a political battleground where schools are treated as capital assets and teachers as low skill operatives who ‘deliver’ prepackaged curricula. Buras’s powerful and moving book explodes these shameful lies and reminds us of the rich and irreplaceable work of Black teachers who care, who are there for children, who EDUCATE in the best sense of that word.”—David Gillborn, author of White Lies: Racism, Education and Critical Race Theory and editor of the journal Race Ethnicity and Education