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Bright kids with Ivy League dreams. Ambitious, energetic, active parents with lots of money. A cushy budget fed by property taxes on million-dollar homes. Creative, well-paid teachers. A recipe for a successful public school? Not always.
Washington Post education reporter Jay Matthews spent three years taking the pulse of American elite public high schools top find out what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, and who gets left in the dust.
He emerged with a penetrating view of the competing--and often damaging--forces that nurture the Ivy League goals of the academic and economic elite while often squashing the less glamorous ambitions and potential of the rest. Matthews's investigation of American high schools taught him that our schools have often adopted some of our worst national habits.
Following the groundbreaking work of Jonathan Kozol, Matthews examines what happens when the ambitions of wealthy parents who consider their kids Ivy League-bound from birth clash with the academic needs of a more diverse population. He reveals how conflicts among students, parents, faculty, administrators, and taxpayers can prevent even the most well-funded and well-staffed public schools from fulfilling their academic promise.
In Class Struggle, Matthews provides an unprecedented ranking of the nation's public high schools--a ranking based on real academic opportunities, not reputation. And he shows what all schools should be doing to maximize learning for the widest possible range of students, not just those with the richest and most aggressive parents.
Matthews's book takes as its primary case study the classrooms and hallways of Mamaronek High School in Westchester County, New York, where battles rage over money, curriculum, faculty tenure, and ability grouping. We follow the progress of a diverse group of students through three years of school, and we sit in on confrontational meetings among teachers, school officials, community taxpayers, and organized, agenda-driven parents, all of whom have different ideas of what the school should be doing with all that money.
Class Struggle is a thorough, insightful portrait of an underexamined slice of American public high school life in the nineties.
Washington Post education reporter Jay Matthews spent three years taking the pulse of American elite public high schools top find out what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, and who gets left in the dust.
He emerged with a penetrating view of the competing--and often damaging--forces that nurture the Ivy League goals of the academic and economic elite while often squashing the less glamorous ambitions and potential of the rest. Matthews's investigation of American high schools taught him that our schools have often adopted some of our worst national habits.
Following the groundbreaking work of Jonathan Kozol, Matthews examines what happens when the ambitions of wealthy parents who consider their kids Ivy League-bound from birth clash with the academic needs of a more diverse population. He reveals how conflicts among students, parents, faculty, administrators, and taxpayers can prevent even the most well-funded and well-staffed public schools from fulfilling their academic promise.
In Class Struggle, Matthews provides an unprecedented ranking of the nation's public high schools--a ranking based on real academic opportunities, not reputation. And he shows what all schools should be doing to maximize learning for the widest possible range of students, not just those with the richest and most aggressive parents.
Matthews's book takes as its primary case study the classrooms and hallways of Mamaronek High School in Westchester County, New York, where battles rage over money, curriculum, faculty tenure, and ability grouping. We follow the progress of a diverse group of students through three years of school, and we sit in on confrontational meetings among teachers, school officials, community taxpayers, and organized, agenda-driven parents, all of whom have different ideas of what the school should be doing with all that money.
Class Struggle is a thorough, insightful portrait of an underexamined slice of American public high school life in the nineties.
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Review:
There is a wide disparity between the academic achievement of poor schools and their wealthy, middle-class neighbors. What makes a child achieve? Is it purely the school environment and resources (or lack of), or is it parents' socioeconomic backgrounds and parenting skills? Taking an unusual tangent, Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews spent three years studying the cream of American high schools, causing him to conclude that even the best-funded and most well-staffed schools suffer from problems, some identical to those experienced in poorer schools. A majority of Mathews's time was spent at Mamaroneck High School in New York, allowing him to provide a first-hand account of the workings of one of the nation's top high schools. A significant flaw with "elite" high schools, argues Mathews, is their failure to adequately push the less academically gifted. Mamaroneck's controversial approach to "pushing" these kids was to introduce a multidisciplinary, integrated curriculum for all, spurring heated debate between parents and teachers, all wanting what's best for the education of their children. Mamaroneck's integrated approach works for some, but Mathews notes that a disproportionately high number of failing students come from poor neighborhoods. There is no easy solution.
From the Back Cover:
Class Struggle is a fascinating look at America's best high schools, providing a balanced journalistic view of what's right and what's wrong and offering thoughts on what all schools should be doing to provide a decent education for every student.
Early Praise for Class Struggle
"Even elite public high schools--the ones with the fancy reputations--suffer from an all-to-pervasive American educational disease: low expectations fro the kids who are not academic sure bets. Jay Matthews, a superb education reporter, has cast his discerning eye on this largely unexamined corner of public education, and with a deft touch told a story of wasted talent and unequal opportunity."
--Abigail Thernstrom, co-author of America in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible, and member, Massachusetts Board of Education
"Jay Matthews is one of America's most energetic and original reporters. A lot of us mistakenly think we understand public education. We don't. By examining the nation's best high schools--thier successes and failures--Matthews tells us much that we ought to have known and didn't."
--Robert J. Samuelson, columnist for Newsweek and The Washington Post
"Even elite public high schools--the ones with the fancy reputations--suffer from an all-to-pervasive American educational disease: low expectations fro the kids who are not academic sure bets. Jay Matthews, a superb education reporter, has cast his discerning eye on this largely unexamined corner of public education, and with a deft touch told a story of wasted talent and unequal opportunity."
--Abigail Thernstrom, co-author of America in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible, and member, Massachusetts Board of Education
"Jay Matthews is one of America's most energetic and original reporters. A lot of us mistakenly think we understand public education. We don't. By examining the nation's best high schools--thier successes and failures--Matthews tells us much that we ought to have known and didn't."
--Robert J. Samuelson, columnist for Newsweek and The Washington Post
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- PublisherCrown
- Publication date1998
- ISBN 10 0812924479
- ISBN 13 9780812924473
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages312
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