Philip Brand has made an extraordinary journey.

Beginning in New Hampshire in September, 2008, Brand and his brother Evan spent seven months traveling the country, visiting two schools in each state (except Alaska). They visited inner-city schools, home schools, suburban schools, rich schools, poor schools–all in a painstaking attempt, as Brand puts it, to “understand American schooling.” The result of this sojourn is an invaluable, sometimes heart-breaking, treatise on the state of contemporary American schools.