Class Struggle

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In his well-written, comprehensive analysis, Washington Post education reporter Mathews (Escalante: The Best Teacher in America) reveals the flaws of America's "elite public schools." He spent three years conducting on-site research at four schools across the nation, but focuses primarily on Mamaroneck High School in New York's Westchester County, a school he ranks 73rd in his listing of 200. Through case studies and personal profiles, Mathews catalogues common problems of most schools (the privileged included), as well as issues that are peculiar to leading institutions because of their high-powered clientele. Pivotal in his discussion are the controversies of tracking and ability grouping; in the case of America's best schools, says Mathews, "notoriously aggressive" parents insist on these practices, though teachers find them detrimental to the student body as a whole. Mathews reports that Yale- and Harvard-bound youth are just as likely to drink or cheat, simply because "it is... easier." Class Struggle as the title impliesalso delves into the economic realities of neighborhood incomes and tax dollars, wisely connecting them with administrators' salaries and, indirectly, with the growing controversy of tenure. Although Mathews claims that advanced-placement classes and examinations "could revitalize thousands of schools" if they "maintain their depth and rigor," the bottom line is less optimistic: "Elite schools [are] not judged by how well [they] educate every child." In this respect and others, they do not differ from most high schools.

Richard Rothstein

Mathews argues forcefully that we can do a better job of making high levels of academic achievement accessible to even the most disadvantaged students, fulfilling, for at least some of them, the dream of education as an engine of social mobility.

--Richard Rothstein, New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

A probing examination of the strengths and weaknesses—but mostly the weaknesses—of our nation's top-rated and best-funded public high schools. Washington Post education reporter Mathews (A Mothers Touch, 1992) paints a compelling portrait of the educators, parents, students, and curricula of wealthy Mamaroneck High School in suburban New York, while also offering running commentaries on the other elite schools that he has visited during the past three years. While he does grant these schools their victories, he is extremely critical of their approach to students who arent overachievers. Mathews is especially perturbed by the school's enthusiasm for the tracking system, which relegates economically and socially disadvantaged students—particularly blacks and Latinos—to the lower educational ranks and denies them access to the school's most challenging courses. He is concerned, too, with the lack of scholarly research thus far into the "odd and potentially harmful ways these schools have stratified their students." Since the elite schools seek mainly to benefit their majority constituency—which happens to be the upper-class and motivated students—it should come as no surprise that this constituency's parents and the educators who establish school policies are reluctant to change their ways. The school budget in Mamaroneck is also designed to accommodate the most productive students. Though Mamaroneck offers more advanced- placement courses and science options than most of the college-bound students will ever have the time to take, those are the last classes to fall off the roster, even if enrollment is slim. Theyre also the least welcoming classes tothe suburb's disadvantaged students. Fact-filled and engaging, a trenchant study, indispensable to the policy-makers for America's top 230 high schools (as ranked in the book's useful index).