"What we want are not packaged solutions but rather a problem solving process ..." Everyone who wants to be part of the process of change will find hope in this story of one man"s crusade to improve urban education. Marcus Foster was one of the few educators in this country with a success story to tell -- because he improved schools for the poor and oppressed in observable and documented ways. He believed that expectations determine results, and his results were impressive. Mr. Foster had a style and a set of assumptions that are simple, practical, and his own: nothing that concerns children is outside the range of education; educational leadership means cutting across lines of the old pecking order; education is always person-to-person action, no matter how complex the problems -- and this means engaging parents, school staff, children, and community to implement change; confrontation provides opportunities for growth, and crises are opportunities gone wrong. This is a vibrant account of creative involvement where the action is that can serve as a blueprint for effecting change. Marcus A. Foster at the time of publication was Superintendent of the Oakland, California, School System. He had served successively, with outstanding success, as principal of three of Philadelphia"s problem schools, including Gratz High School. His record of accomplished improvement in all three established his reputation with administrators across the country. His programs of innovation, motivation, and community involvement at Gratz won him the Philadelphia Award; his political action program there, which brought him into head-on confrontation with the city"s political establishment, made headlines from coast to coast. He won further national recognition as Associate Superintendent for Community Affairs in the Philadelphia School System with programs for directing student and community unrest into constructive channels.