Miracle Children - by Katie Benner & Erica L Green (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A riveting investigation into a school, a scam, and a notorious college admissions scandal that exposes the inequalities and racial segregation of American education, from two award-winning New York Times journalists T.M. Landry College Prep, a small private school in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, boasted a 100 percent college acceptance rate, placing students at nearly every Ivy League university in the country. The spectacle of Landry students opening their acceptance letters to Harvard and Stanford was broadcast on television and even celebrated by Michelle Obama. It became a national ritual to watch the miraculous success of these youngsters-miraculous because Breaux Bridge is one of the poorest counties in the country, ranked close to the bottom for test scores and high school graduation rates. T.M. Landry was said to be "minting prodigies," and the prodigies were often Black. How did the school do it? It didn't-it was a scam, pulled off with fake transcripts and personal essays telling fake stories of triumph over adversity. Worse: Landry's success concealed a nightmare of alleged abuse and coercion. In a yearslong investigation, Katie Benner and Erica L. Green explored the lives of the students, the school, the town, and Ivy League admissions to understand why Black teens were pressured to trade racial stereotypes of hardship for opportunity. Gripping and illuminating, Miracle Children argues that the lesson of T.M. Landry is not that the school gamed the system but that it played by the rules-its deceptions and abuses the outcome of segregated schools, inequitable education, and the belief that elite colleges are the nation's last path to life-changing economic opportunity"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

A riveting investigation into a school, a scam, and a notorious college admissions scandal that exposes the inequalities and racial segregation of American education, from two award-winning New York Times journalists

T.M. Landry College Prep, a small private school in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, boasted a 100 percent college acceptance rate, placing students at nearly every Ivy League university in the country. The spectacle of Landry students opening their acceptance letters to Harvard and Stanford was broadcast on television and even celebrated by Michelle Obama. It became a national ritual to watch the miraculous success of these youngsters--miraculous because Breaux Bridge is one of the poorest counties in the country, ranked close to the bottom for test scores and high school graduation rates. T.M. Landry was said to be "minting prodigies," and the prodigies were often Black.

How did the school do it? It didn't--it was a scam, pulled off with fake transcripts and personal essays telling fake stories of triumph over adversity. Worse: Landry's success concealed a nightmare of alleged abuse and coercion. In a yearslong investigation, Katie Benner and Erica L. Green explored the lives of the students, the school, the town, and Ivy League admissions to understand why Black teens were pressured to trade racial stereotypes of hardship for opportunity.

Gripping and illuminating, Miracle Children argues that the lesson of T.M. Landry is not that the school gamed the system but that it played by the rules--its deceptions and abuses the outcome of segregated schools, inequitable education, and the belief that elite colleges are the nation's last path to life-changing economic opportunity.

Review Quotes

"Miracle Children reads like a true-crime novel; you won't be able to put it down. And when you do set it aside, you'll be drawn back to the real crime at the heart of the story: America only values Black children when they 'beat the odds, ' odds America itself created. Benner and Green braid history, personal narrative, and voices from the past to tell a story that is American to its core, of a nation where too many Black people have no choice but to lie, cheat, and steal just to claim a fraction of what is freely granted to White America--an education."
--Bettina L. Love, author of Punished for Dreaming

"Miracle Children is not just an exposé of a college scam, it's a keen dissection of our segregated schools and our segregated rewards, of a system so rigged that gaming it is the price of entrance. And it probes the mechanisms that Americans use to hide their own sins from themselves. In the chronicle of the American war on Black life, this book is essential reading."
--Eddie S. Glaude Jr., author of Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

"With meticulous reporting and a wellspring of empathy, Miracle Children lays bare not simply the failings of a single institution but the tangled history and flawed policy that allowed it to resemble a solution. This book shows what is at stake--for these students and for every American who cares about our future."
--Jelani Cobb, author of Three or More Is a Riot

"Miracle Children is essential reading for anyone concerned with the education of children, especially black children. Delving into the lives of the students, their parents, and the founders of T.M. Landry School in Louisiana, Benner and Green have captured the complexity of the story while providing a rich analysis of issues at the intersection of racial discrimination, academic achievement gaps, and college admissions. They demand that we ask hard questions: What is the purpose of a college education? How do we stress the critical importance of fundamental values such as honesty and integrity? This is a superb account."
--Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president emeritus, University of Maryland Baltimore County, inaugural Centennial Fellow at the American Council on Education

"A clear and nuanced account . . . [Benner and Green] describe the tension between the ideal of personal responsibility and the structural inequities in American society. . . . Alarming."
--Kirkus

About the Author

Katie Benner covers the Department of Justice for The New York Times, where she was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2018. She previously worked at CNN Money, Fortune, and Bloomberg and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and Marketplace. She lives in Washington, DC.

Erica L. Green, coauthor (with Wes Moore) of Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City, is an award-winning journalist at The New York Times and was named a best education reporter in the country by the Education Writers Association in 2021. She and her team at The Baltimore Sun were 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalists for their coverage of the death of Freddie Gray and the riots that followed. She lives in Maryland.