On pages 48–49 of The Other Wes Moore, we learn about the sacrifices Wes and Justin made to attend their school. What did this early experience teach Wes and Justin about the importance of goals?

Wes and Justin must travel to attend their school and be singled out by their peers but they realize these are things they must face in order to get their education. They quickly learn that they must step out of their comfort zone and work a little harder to achieve their goals. Even though they do not like to travel a ways to get to school or be picked on by their peers they must remain focused on their end-goal. They must face these current hardships in order to achieve their goal and be successful in the long-run. They must take advantage of the opportunity they were given and make the best of it.

Despite growing up in a loving family environment, the author Wes Moore has been getting into trouble. His mother's worried that he might end up falling into a life of crime like so many other young men of his age. She figures that the only way to prevent that from happening is by changing her son's environment. That means sending him off to military school.
Doing so involves making a lot of sacrifices. Unbeknownst to Wes, almost every member of his family has had to contribute financially to send him to military school; his grandparents gave up almost the whole of their life savings. Wes learns from this that it was only though such enormous sacrifices that he was able to change his path in life, a path that had led to achievement and success.
As for Justin, Wes's friend, he has to sacrifice his good grades at school in order to help out his family after his mother's diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, a rare form of cancer. With his sister away at college and his father living in Harlem, Justin has to hold the family together, juggling basketball practice and study with making regular visits to the hospital to see his mom. Inevitably, this has a disastrous effect on his schoolwork, and his grades decline accordingly.
And yet despite his many trials and tribulations, Justin never gives up hope and remains determined to make something of himself. Despite being diagnosed with cancer himself, Justin also achieves much in life, eventually forging a successful career in education.