This paper documents the hopes, desires and structural betrayals experienced by young people attending transfer schools in New York City. Transfer schools enroll more than 15,000 students each year who are disproportionately young people of color, poor and working-class youth, from immigrant families, and youth with disabilities. Most have fallen behind on academic benchmarks. Many have been systematically pushed out of school through zero tolerance policies, high stakes testing cultures, and a lack of culturally relevant approaches to curriculum and pedagogy. This paper explores survey responses from 842 transfer school students, collected as part of a broader participatory action research study. Our analysis reveals that many transfer school students persist in the face of multiple obstacles that disrupt their educational progress, including material insecurity, previously alienating school experiences, housing insecurity, violence and struggles with mental health. Moreover, we find that students experience the transfer schools in this study as relationally rich, caring, intellectually rigorous, and mutually accountable learning communities that help them overcome obstacles that previously held them back. Our analysis confirms transfer school students' desires and persistence in the face of adversity and demonstrates the academic and socio-emotional commitments and impact of educators and counselors in transfer schools. Under current federal and state accountability frameworks, transfer schools are threatened by one-size-fits all metrics, punitive policies, and racialized austerity. As such, their importance and impact is consistently mismeasured and under-acknowledged. In this paper, we present evidence that these schools represent the radical rim of what is possible in public education, and we argue that we must support their efforts, honor their commitments, and establish a more equitable system for evaluating the essential work they do.