School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a Top American High School - Softcover

Humes, Edward

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156030071 ISBN 13: 9780156030076

Publisher: Ecco Press, 2004

Synopsis

The pressure to succeed in our nation's most competitive public high schools is often crushing. Striving to understand this insular world, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes spent a year at California's Whitney High, a school so renowned that parents move across town-and across the world-hoping to enroll their children. That's because schools like Whitney deliver everything parents want: love of learning, a sense of mission, and SAT scores that pave the way to elite universities. Attending such a school, of course, carries its own toll: High-achieving, pressured kids survive on espresso and four hours' sleep a night, falling into despair if they get a B.

Lively, personal, and very readable, School of Dreams uncovers what works-and what doesn't-at this model high school, offering parents, students, and teachers some powerful messages about public education today.

About this title

Review:

"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 "

"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 "

PRAISE FOR SCHOOL OF DREAMS
"A masterly example of passionate yet even-handed reporting . . . Deserves an A+, even without grade inflation." -Michael Dirda, The Washington Post book world

"Engrossing . . . Deserves credit for showing that a fine public school education isn't necessarily an oxymoron."-The Boston Globe

"School of Dreams gives hope about American education... and genuine excitement about the young people of this nation."
--President, Hampshire College "George S. Prince, Jr. "

"Humes' fascinating book chronicles an entirely different group of students, with a different set of challenges."
--Los Angeles Times (08/31/2003)

"A masterly example of passionate yet even-handed reporting.... It deserves an A+, even without grade inflation."
-- (09/07/2003)

From the Back Cover:

A Washington Post Book World Rave

In School of Dreams, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes chronicles the year he spent in a remarkable public high school where students struggle to harmonize parents' expectations with their own goals and teachers search for that elusive balance between creating great test takers and fostering great learners. Humes gives us an inside look at the daily joys, disasters, stress, and struggles of the memorable students of Whitney High, as well as those of their teachers and parents. The result is an honest and enlightening story of what life is really like for today's high-achieving high-school students-and a revealing look at the state of public education in America.

"Engrossing . . . Deserves credit for showing that a fine public school education isn't necessarily an oxymoron." -The Boston Globe

Edward Humes has written numerous books, including Baby E.R. and the bestselling Mississippi Mud, Mean Justice, and No Matter How Loud I Shout, which won the PEN Center award for nonfiction. He lives in Southern California.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0156030071
• ISBN 13: 9780156030076
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 370