“Around here,” a senior named Tony says with a mirthless laugh while waiting behind the pep squad girls at Starbucks, “four is the magic number. We all want 4.0 grade point averages. We all get by on four hours sleep. And it can take four big lattes just to get us through the day.”
— From School of Dreams

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Edward Humes chronicles life inside one of the nation’s top public schools, California’s Whitney High, a homely campus with a modest budget yet a following so passionate families move halfway around the world to enroll their kids.

SCHOOL OF DREAMS: Making the Grade at a Top American High School (Harcourt, September 1, 2003) is the in-depth, riveting story of our best and brightest students, struggling to balance their parents’ ambitious dreams with their own goals. In an era in which public schools are continually criticized and American teenagers are portrayed in the most negative terms, School of Dreams has another story to tell, of young people with dedication, drive and commitment. At Whitney High, the test scores are stratospheric, sleep is optional, and students chug espresso just to keep up. But there are unintended consequences to the culture of high expectations so key to the school’s success: Kids give over their childhoods to a blur of exams, all-nighters and extra classes, while teachers struggle for balance between creating great test-takers and fostering great learners. Not even their own families seem to realize the stress and conflicts they endure as they try to sort out their own dreams from the expectations of ambitious parents.

Humes spent a year immersed in this high-pressure world, gaining extraordinary insight into the inner lives of driven teens who fall into despair not from failing a course, but from earning a mere B. The author attended classes with these high-achievers and taught a writing workshop at Whitney, as the school opened its doors to him without limitations. The result is a very human story of what it now takes to be a top student — and a top American high school.

 

“School of Dreams is brilliant. It's a book that every politician should read before they attempt to run for office.”

— Thomas Steinbeck, author of Down to a Soundless Sea

“School of Dreams is everything we've come to expect from this keen-eyed reporter and compassionate storyteller: an engaging cast of characters drawn with a fine and fair hand, a big story told intimately and well, and a book that's not only compulsively readable, but undeniably important.”

— Lauren Kessler, author of Clever Girl and director of
the University of Oregon's graduate program in literary nonfiction

“School of Dreams gives hope about the future for American education, cause for alarm about how well-intended policies can undo that hope, and genuine excitement about the young people of this nation.”

— Gregory S. Prince, President, Hampshire College

“Beautifully written and compulsively readable, told compassionately but with a journalist's eye to getting the whole story, School of Dreams sheds light on the increasing pressures of giving and getting an American education.”

— Rachel Simmons, author, Odd Girl Out

“Well-written, informative… urging parents and policy makers to study success for a change.”

— Publishers Weekly

1

“We have great kids here, wonderful students. The best. I love teaching here.” The drama teacher hurls the obligatory praise over her shoulder like a trail of bread crumbs as she leads the fresh arrivals on a quick tour of their new school. Then she gets to the inevitable but, her voice a stage whisper now, forcing the six new teachers hurrying after her to crane forward. "“But there are two things you really, really have to remember about this place....”

Jodi Improta heads Whitney High School's drama department with good reason: She knows how to set up a line. “First, these kids are messy,” she tells them. She bobs her blond head at a Coke bottle and some crumpled papers scattered on the ground outside the library, courtesy of the kids who stopped by earlier for textbook pickup. “They never pick up their trash. Unless you ride them.”

The new teachers chuckle and relax a bit. Their tour guide's conspirational tone had left them worried there for a minute. But litterbugs? Even the greenest educator can handle that. Improta picks up the refuse, pitches it into a trash can, then pushes through a set of double doors into the old square warehouse of a school building. She pauses in her brisk stroll just long enough to introduce a barrage of passing faculty members in the hallway and to point out the alcove holding the all-important staff copy machines and laminator. The newbies nod blankly, trying to absorb it all. Improta has them lulled now. No one sees the punch line coming.
“ Now, here's the second thing you gotta remember,” she resumes cheerfully. “Some of our kids cheat. Big time.”

Six heads snap to attention at this, a frieze of knitted brows and pursed lips. One of the new teachers laughs nervously. Trash on the asphalt is one thing, but this bald statement about cheating brings them up short.
This is, after all, Gretchen Whitney High School she's talking about, the top-ranked public high school in California, one of the best (and best-kept secrets) in the nation — prep-school quality at public-school prices. In an era when public education is derided daily by pundits and presidents as hopelessly broken, blamed for every social ill from a dearth of youthful patriotism to an abundance of youthful pregnancies, Whitney High is an unabashed success. It is a public school that works, without any special funding, charters, vouchers, union concessions, or private enterprise takeovers — none of the most-touted cures for what supposedly ails public education. There are no uniforms, no scripted lesson plans, no zero-tolerance policies. As such, Whitney is no one's political cause or poster child, and if its principal is treated like a celebrity abroad, he stands anonymous in the checkout line at the local supermarket; his school is not only off the national radar screen, it is a virtual unknown in its own state and even in neighboring Los Angeles, where other schools get all the press. Yet test scores at Whitney rival those at the nation's most elite private and public academies, the best colleges in the country court and woo the seniors like starstruck autograph seekers, few years go by without someone (or two or three) scoring a perfect SAT. People don't just move from other cities to this geographically unfashionable L.A. suburb so they can send their kids to Whitney. They move from other countries to attend an American public high school. And come graduation night, Whitney doesn't have just one or two valedictorians. Most years a dozen or more 4.0s line up to shake the Whitney principal's hand.

"Don't be so surprised," the drama teacher cautions. "Our kids are so smart, they find ways to get around the rules. Ways you've never imagined." She goes on to describe an elaborate method several students worked out for beaming test answers to one another's PalmPilots.

It is almost too much to bear. First the six new teachers had to weather that interminable high school ritual, the welcome-back faculty meeting, with its meandering agenda, weak coffee, and insider references only initiates could follow. Later they were introduced to their classrooms, some to be shared with veteran teachers (who had already staked out most of the drawers, shelves, and prime wall space), others in varying states of cleanliness and repair (one new science teacher had to excavate a quarter century's accumulation of old papers; a Dumpster was thoughtfully provided). Then they sat through an inspirational video by a National Geographic photographer whose funereally paced pronouncements on "everyday creativity" sounded suspiciously like the old "Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handy," parody of Saturday Night Live fame ("There's always more than one right answer! Don't be afraid to make mistakes!").

And, finally, there is this ten-minute tour, the only orientation these new teachers will get before the students arrive in two days, a brief jaunt through the school's less-than-impressive physical plant. Like most newcomers, they gape at the aged carpets, walls, furniture, and double-decker rows of lockers in the halls, all colored in a rainbow of oranges, mustards, yellows, browns, and harvest golds — a palette traditionally reserved for certain 1970s-era suburban kitchens, but repeated extravagantly here in classroom after classroom. For those used to it, the extraordinary ugliness is a point of pride, testament to the fact that Whitney manages to be the top-ranked high school in all of California despite receiving less money per pupil than any other school in its district. But these are new teachers, unaware of such subtle charms. They're looking less prideful than shell-shocked.

Improta takes pity on them. She simply meant to inform, not to horrify, when she dished a little on cheating-better to be prepared than blindsided, she figures. “They're really good kids here,” she promises. “This is a great place to teach. But they're under such pressure-from their parents, from us, from the colleges. Maybe it's partly our fault, but some of them feel compelled to cheat. So you really have to watch them, that's all.”

And then they arrive back at the administration office suite, the tour ending where it began, next to the orange-and-yellow counter piled high with doughnut-shop goodies for the staff, with stacks of first-day student information packets ready for stapling, and with the principal, Dr. Thomas Brock, who for no particular reason at all is standing atop the counter, surveying his domain with a broad smile on his bearded face. “Welcome to Whitney High School,” Improta remembers to say before heading off to prep her room.

Copyright © 2003 by Edward Humes

Links

EducationNews.org — An excellent daily synopsis and links to education news in the English-speaking world. Browse the site or have the news summary emailed to you daily. Must reading for anyone interested in education news, issues and commentary.

GreatSchools.net — Check the standardized tests scores of many of the nation’s public schools in states that have accountability assessments. Some states, such as California, have more complete information available on this site than others.

Academic Performance Index — California’s extensive system for ranking every public school in the state is one national model that can be accessed here, allowing anyone to see how their current or prospective school measures up. There is a great deal background information available on the test — from the state of California’s perspective. The Orange County Register wrote an interesting series of stories questioning the reliability of the API tests. And go here for the state’s rebuttal to the series (scroll down to Accuracy Reports).

The California Teachers Association offers it’s own perspective on testing, including a Parent-Student Testing Survival Guide, as well as a round-up of education news in the Golden State. CTA is part of the National Education Association.

Education Week — Another fine source of education news, with an excellent archive and links to research reports.

ERIC — The Department of Education’s clearinghouse of studies and research on education offers a huge array of information. Look here and here for information on Asian-Americans and educational achievement.

EducationNext­ This journal issue examines where we’re at twenty years after the publication of the controversial landmark report, A Nation at Risk, which set the tone for the last two decades of education reform and criticism. Read A Nation at Risk. Read a critique of the report.

Exceptional Small Schools — A list of links to some interesting and innovative schools.

Diane Ravitch is an incisive and thought-provoking writer and education historian, a Bush I undersecretary of education, and a Hoover fellow. More info on her work here.

The Big Test — The real story of the SAT, in this Atlantic Monthly interview with Nicholas Lehman, author of "The Big Test."

School: The Story of American Public Education — Excellent PBS series and website on the history of public schools.

Public Agenda Online offers varying perspectives on what’s wrong with public education, and prescriptions to improve it. The site gives something for everyone, comparing four distinct approaches: reform through raising standards, by making schools more "student centered," by increasing funding, or by increasing choice.

Uh, Like Student Writing is Bad — The head on this CNN piece says it all. Our national obession with standardized, multiple choice tests has created a generation of kids who can’t put two coherent paragraphs together. Get the full report from the National Commission on Writing in America’s Schools and Colleges.

Frontline — The PBS series has done some excellent reporting on issues of great importance to public education, including a look at the rise of privatization in public schools (focused on Edison Schools), and testing and the No Child Left Behind Act.

High Stakes Flop? — Researchers in Arizona find no evidence of educational benefits in the high-stakes, school accountability tests that have become the driving force in public school reform, the heart of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, and the principal source of fingerpointing from voucher and privatization advocates. Read the full study here. Find a rebuttal to the study and its findings here

Class Struggle Washington Post reporter Jay Mathews writes one of the best education columns in the country. Great school-related resources link from this page, too. Mathews is also the driving force behind Newsweek’s attempt to find the 100 best high schools in America, a worthy but deeply flawed effort that uses Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate testing as key factors. The methodology excludes from consideration many excellent, innovative schools, including those with admissions requirements, such as Whitney High School, the setting for School of Dreams. The actual rankings can be found here.

TurnItIn.com — Where teachers go to stop cheating, at places like CheatHouse.com. Some sobering statistics on cheating here, here, and here.