School of Dreams - by Edward Humes (Paperback)

About the Book

What does a top public school look like? In the case of Whitney High, it's a ramshackle campus in a bad part of L.A. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Humes spent a year in this world, where the best and brightest students struggle to harmonize parents' dreams with their own goals.

Book Synopsis

The pressure to succeed in our nation's most competitive public high schools is often crushing. Striving to understand this insular world, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes spent a year at California's Whitney High, a school so renowned that parents move across town-and across the world-hoping to enroll their children. That's because schools like Whitney deliver everything parents want: love of learning, a sense of mission, and SAT scores that pave the way to elite universities. Attending such a school, of course, carries its own toll: High-achieving, pressured kids survive on espresso and four hours' sleep a night, falling into despair if they get a B.

Lively, personal, and very readable, School of Dreams uncovers what works-and what doesn't-at this model high school, offering parents, students, and teachers some powerful messages about public education today.

From the Back Cover

A Washington Post Book World Rave

In School of Dreams, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes chronicles the year he spent in a remarkable public high school where students struggle to harmonize parents' expectations with their own goals and teachers search for that elusive balance between creating great test takers and fostering great learners. Humes gives us an inside look at the daily joys, disasters, stress, and struggles of the memorable students of Whitney High, as well as those of their teachers and parents. The result is an honest and enlightening story of what life is really like for today's high-achieving high-school students-and a revealing look at the state of public education in America.

"Engrossing . . . Deserves credit for showing that a fine public school education isn't necessarily an oxymoron." -The Boston Globe

Edward Humes has written numerous books, including Baby E.R. and the bestselling Mississippi Mud, Mean Justice, and No Matter How Loud I Shout, which won the PEN Center award for nonfiction. He lives in Southern California.

Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR SCHOOL OF DREAMS
"A masterly example of passionate yet even-handed reporting . . . Deserves an A+, even without grade inflation." -Michael Dirda, The Washington Post book world

"Engrossing . . . Deserves credit for showing that a fine public school education isn't necessarily an oxymoron."-The Boston Globe

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