Class Struggle: What's Wrong (and Right) with America's Best Public High Schools - Softcover

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.

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.

"[Class Struggle's] message of higher expectations for all students is the right one."--The Washington Post Book World

"Mathews argues forcefully that we can do a better job of making high levels of academic achievement accessible, . . . fulfilling . . . the dream of education as an engine of social mobility."--The New York Times Book Review