School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a Top American High School($20.76Value)

Description

Whitney High delivers everything we ask of a school: a love of learning, a sense of mission, and SAT scores to die for. But there are unintended consequences to attending the school of our dreams, as author Edward Humes found during his year inside this world of high achievement and high pressure. Journalist Edward Humes shows us a little-seen side of our nation's educational system: the side that works. Humes spent a year (2001-02) at Whitney High School in Cerritos, California, a small, middle-class suburb of Los Angeles, where he taught a writing workshop and observed the daily workings of this top-ranked public school. The book honestly examines the extraordinary effort (and elusive chemistry) it takes to achieve that status and the subsequent toll it takes on the remarkable students at the school. It also provides a wonderful portrait of American life. For all its distinction, Whitney High School reflects a cross-section of America, where immigrant families struggle with their American counterparts to guide their children toward academic excellence. It comes as no surprise that at the heart of Whitney's success is a devoted staff of teachers and administrators who are as overworked and brilliant as their high-achieving charges. Nor should it shock us that the school's ranking does not come without a price. Whitney students are driven and well-rounded, but they are also sleep-deprived and often subjected to extreme parental pressure. The downside of life at Whitney is that a focus on high grades and college placement sometimes takes the place of the joy of learning, and worse yet, sometimes leads some students to cheat. Still, as Humes's engaging narrative reveals, the triumphs far outweigh the inevitable shortcomings. Unfortunately, the model Whitney provides is easy to identify but not easy to reproduce. As Humes observes, our nation's most successful schools "are small, intimate, and attentive. . . marked by high expectations put to work in tangible ways. . . [with] rigorous traditional studies (as opposed to rigorous drilling for annual high-stakes tests); longer hours of study and work; strong parental involvement. . . low absenteeism and few discipline problems; and leadership with a vision." --Silvana Tropea Humes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, spent a year in suburban L.A. at Whitney High, one of the most successful public high schools in the nation, to examine the relentless pressure on American students to achieve and get accepted into the top universities. In contrast to too many public schools, Whitney has everything parents and students could want--dedicated staff and a long history of high achievement--but it also has students fueled by caffeine or drugs, pushing themselves to take advanced placement courses, focusing more on grades than on learning. Humes offers portraits of individual teachers and students, from a broad racial and ethnic array, to demonstrate the dynamic relationships at play in this high-pressure school, with ambitious parents looking over everyone's shoulders, pushing for just the right high-school resume to get into HYP (Harvard, Yale, and Princeton). Humes captures the angst and yearning of high-school students who want to achieve, for themselves and their parents, but who have a vague sense that they're missing out on something less tangible than a grade-point average. Vanessa Bush Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "A big story told intimately and well, and a book that is not only compulsively readable but also undeniably important." -- Lauren Kessler, University of Oregon "A masterly example of passionate yet even-handed reporting…. It deserves an A+,, even without grade inflation." -- Review "A masterly example of passionate yet even-handed reporting.. It deserves an A+,, even without grade inflation." -- Michael Dirda, The Washington Post, Sep 7 2003 "Beautifully written and compulsively readable, told compassionately but with a journalist's eye to getting the whole story." -- Rachel Simmons, author of ODD GIRL OUT "Humes' fascinating book chronicles an entirely different group of students, witth a different set of challenges." -- Los Angeles Times, Aug 31 2003 "School of Dreams gives hope about American education. and genuine excitement abbout the young people of this nation." -- President, Hampshire College, George S. Prince, Jr. What is the price of an education at a top public high school? Whitney High delivers everything we ask of a school: a love of learning, a sense of mission, and SAT scores to die for. But there are unintended consequences to attending the school of our dreams, as author Edward Humes found during his year inside this world of high achievement and high pressure. Students work nearly around the clock, building futures to please parents as much as themselves. Their drug of choice? Caffeine. Their goal? Getting into a top college. Their biggest fear? Not living up to their families'