Making a Difference: The Story of Irl Solomon and the Difference One Teacher Made in the Schools of East St. Louis

Irl Solomon graduated from Brandeis University in the early 1960s and immediately started to look for a teaching job in or near his hometown of St. Louis. Without giving it much thought, Irl, who had grown up in the middle-class inner suburbs of the Gateway City, took a job in the public schools of East St. Louis.

At the time, this depressed metropolis that looks west across the Mississippi River and stares squarely at the Gateway Arch was a dying city. Always the stepchild compared to its c...