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Class Struggle: What's Wrong (and Right) with America's Best Public High Schools
Are America's elite public high schools neglecting the potential of many students in favor of a select few?
Following the trail blazed by Jonathan Kozol's landmark books on inner-city schools, Jay Mathews examines America's elite suburban high schools and asks key questions about Do public high schools located in wealthy school districts succeed in providing all students with access to a quality education? What about students who have less ample means than their better-off classmates? In Class Struggle, Mathews brings into focus surprising and troubling revelations about America's most well-funded high schools.
Mathews spent three years taking the pulse of America's public high schools--including an extended stay at Mamaroneck High School in Westchester County, New York--to find out what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, and how they could be doing much better. He emerges with a penetrating analysis of the competing forces that nurture the Ivy League goals of the academic elite while often quashing the less glamorous dreams and potential of the rest. His investigation shows that America's best high schools often cultivate complacency when challenges and incentives should be available to all.
Following the trail blazed by Jonathan Kozol's landmark books on inner-city schools, Jay Mathews examines America's elite suburban high schools and asks key questions about Do public high schools located in wealthy school districts succeed in providing all students with access to a quality education? What about students who have less ample means than their better-off classmates? In Class Struggle, Mathews brings into focus surprising and troubling revelations about America's most well-funded high schools.
Mathews spent three years taking the pulse of America's public high schools--including an extended stay at Mamaroneck High School in Westchester County, New York--to find out what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, and how they could be doing much better. He emerges with a penetrating analysis of the competing forces that nurture the Ivy League goals of the academic elite while often quashing the less glamorous dreams and potential of the rest. His investigation shows that America's best high schools often cultivate complacency when challenges and incentives should be available to all.
- GenresEducation
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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July 4, 2015I have a soft spot in my heart for Jay Mathews, who in 2010 took a question from me and turned it into a column that ended up helping to save an endangered program that my co-teacher and I had worked hard to develop. He has always been a thoughtful commentator on education, even though I don't always agree with him -- such as on the way his famous/infamous Challenge Index is structured. I'm not sure why I had never read this book before, but I am glad to have done so now.
The book, which describes Mathews's findings from several years and an untold number of visits to some of the nation's highest-regarded, highest-performing public high schools, benefits from his thoroughness and openness. He has his preferences, which he lays out pretty clearly, but shows his skill as a reporter here by shedding light on all sides without presumption or unkindness. We see students do good things and embarrass themselves, teachers and parents and administrators do the same. This is not a heroes-and-villains story, but a look into an important system with an eye to illuminate both what works and what doesn't, each in its proper context.
His focus on these "elite" situations is refreshing. Too much education talk today comes from pundits who don't spend much/any time inside of schools, who don't look at all sides, and/or who focus on very troubled schools. The nation truly does need to attend to the very troubled schools, but Mathews deserves praise for his understanding that not all that deserves attention is that subset of schools, dire though their need is. He writes thoughtfully to show why a best-practices or one-size-fits-all mentality is not necessarily the way to approach all schools. For example, here he is on how some elite schools take advantage of opportunities to avoid rules that constrain schools in other situations:
He goes on to condone these acts as entrepreneurial, but is sympathetic to the stresses of the school where the struggle is toward proficiency and critical of haughtiness among union folk and parents. He's not complacent; he is discriminating between different things that should be perceived in different ways, because that is where the strength of local control and innovation lies. As F. Scott Fitzgerald suggested, Mathews can hold two contrasting ideas in his head without losing the ability to function...or, more importantly, without feeling the urge to oversimplify them to either black or white.
Most importantly, he stands for high expectations, and compliments these schools when they set them for all kids. The implied critique of those with low expectations hangs in the air in a way that any parent, child, and especially teacher should recognize and agree with. He rails against the forces that consider college more important than learning, call "hard courses bad and easy courses good" (276), and inflict mindless standards for the sake of standardization. His is an optimistic view...and I think it would be only honest to admit that optimism should be easier to find after a few years spent in some of America's top public schools.
I am fortunate to work in one of these districts -- one he mentions briefly (although his info about our school is off: he mentions two programs for praise, one of which was never run by the school district but by a private group that rents space, and one of which -- assuming that it really did exist -- was gone less than four years later...I wasn't here then, so I don't know, but I do know of several better things he could have cited back then). I am even more fortunate that my children attend the schools here. I respect the author's opposition to complacency and his nuanced and sympathetic appraisal that continuous improvement, thorough self-reflection, and rigorous challenge are the things that will keep good schools good, and make all schooling better.
The book, which describes Mathews's findings from several years and an untold number of visits to some of the nation's highest-regarded, highest-performing public high schools, benefits from his thoroughness and openness. He has his preferences, which he lays out pretty clearly, but shows his skill as a reporter here by shedding light on all sides without presumption or unkindness. We see students do good things and embarrass themselves, teachers and parents and administrators do the same. This is not a heroes-and-villains story, but a look into an important system with an eye to illuminate both what works and what doesn't, each in its proper context.
His focus on these "elite" situations is refreshing. Too much education talk today comes from pundits who don't spend much/any time inside of schools, who don't look at all sides, and/or who focus on very troubled schools. The nation truly does need to attend to the very troubled schools, but Mathews deserves praise for his understanding that not all that deserves attention is that subset of schools, dire though their need is. He writes thoughtfully to show why a best-practices or one-size-fits-all mentality is not necessarily the way to approach all schools. For example, here he is on how some elite schools take advantage of opportunities to avoid rules that constrain schools in other situations:
Such genial independence, just short of arrogance, summarizes the elite public school. State and national rules and standards are made for others. Normal hurdles are too low and ordinary yardsticks too short. Scarsdale did not bother awarding a state Regents diploma. La Jolla's principal chided San Diego administrators for allegedly trying to dumb down his South San Diego students. New Trier insisted on keeping its level system even though the huge evaluation team it spent $40,000 to bring to Winnetka said it was not a good idea. (273)
He goes on to condone these acts as entrepreneurial, but is sympathetic to the stresses of the school where the struggle is toward proficiency and critical of haughtiness among union folk and parents. He's not complacent; he is discriminating between different things that should be perceived in different ways, because that is where the strength of local control and innovation lies. As F. Scott Fitzgerald suggested, Mathews can hold two contrasting ideas in his head without losing the ability to function...or, more importantly, without feeling the urge to oversimplify them to either black or white.
Most importantly, he stands for high expectations, and compliments these schools when they set them for all kids. The implied critique of those with low expectations hangs in the air in a way that any parent, child, and especially teacher should recognize and agree with. He rails against the forces that consider college more important than learning, call "hard courses bad and easy courses good" (276), and inflict mindless standards for the sake of standardization. His is an optimistic view...and I think it would be only honest to admit that optimism should be easier to find after a few years spent in some of America's top public schools.
I am fortunate to work in one of these districts -- one he mentions briefly (although his info about our school is off: he mentions two programs for praise, one of which was never run by the school district but by a private group that rents space, and one of which -- assuming that it really did exist -- was gone less than four years later...I wasn't here then, so I don't know, but I do know of several better things he could have cited back then). I am even more fortunate that my children attend the schools here. I respect the author's opposition to complacency and his nuanced and sympathetic appraisal that continuous improvement, thorough self-reflection, and rigorous challenge are the things that will keep good schools good, and make all schooling better.
February 16, 2010
To a canadian, this book was a little bit confusing. I also wondered whether our students compare to US students, in terms of high school education. I enjoyed that he wrote the book somewhat like a story rather than just telling us issues and strengths of various schools. I enjoyed following the story of some students, some teachers and some administrators.
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August 28, 2013Read 9/98
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