School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a Top American High School [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

And for this same reason, it's silly of the author, Edward Humes, to posit that the critics of public schools have it all wrong because WHS is proof of a public school that succeeds. You see, underlying his narrative is his thesis that WHS is proof that an under-funded, under-staffed public school with lousy facilities can nevertheless succeed. His proofs, of course, are the dazzling statistics WHS produces in terms of SAT scores, standardized tests, etc.

This is rather simplistic because anyone with common sense would attribute the school's academic prowess to its self-selective and highly unusual demographic composition. I would give Humes more credit if he had the guts to admit the following: that the teachers don't really matter at WHS. Indeed, some of us would even assert that WHS students excel in spite of poor teachers. But this is a harsh thing to say and Humes has neither the insight nor the guts (nor the ability) to present it.

As WHS alumni know, the self-motivated kids at WHS exceed not because of standards imposed by their teachers, but because of standards imposed by their peers/predecessors/parents. Of course, there are notable exceptions. But Humes (largely) ignores the most exceptional WHS teachers (and there are only a handful). Instead, he wastes time describing the current principal as being a huge factor of WHS's success. Really? The truth is, any WHS principal has the easiest public school job in America. Just sit back, ride the students' coattails and take credit for their achievements. This is what all the previous principals did, all of whom enjoyed terms where WHS was the #1 school in CA, and none of whom were responsible for it.

To Mr. Humes credit, he does devote some attention to Mr. B, the U.S. history teacher, who is indeed one of WHS's few faculty gems. But this kind of treatment is sparse. How could there be no mention of the fabulous Mr. S, another history teacher and one of WHS's noteworthy faculty members?

If Mr. Humes were intellectually critical and honest, he would also give us vignettes of some of the really lousy faculty members at WHS. It seemed like as a courtesy he just ignored those facets of the faculty completely.

Another weakness of his book is that he focuses on one school year: 2001-02. I understand why he does that in terms of having a coherent narrative, but by focusing on just one year, and skipping over WHS's history (he devotes a few superficial pages to it but nothing substantive), he fails to raise and explore these issues:

How has the parental/peer pressure to succeed academically affected alumni later on in their lives?

How do WHS students perform in college, where success comes more from creative and original thought as opposed to rote memorization?

Have WHS alumni over the past 20 or 30 years done anything remarkable or exceptional? Or have we just churned out a number of doctors, lawyers, and businessmen who have taken a safe, pre-packaged road to success?

These are difficult questions, and Humes has no position, no ability, no insight, and no way to answer these. So he eschewed the more complex issues and wrote an easy book filled with easy answers. I don't blame him for this. Neither do I commend him for it.

Finally, Humes has this obsession with taking cheap shots at the Bush family that manifests itself throughout the book. It's seriously annoying and his obsessiveness makes him an even less credible author.

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And just when you think you have all the answers, read Hume's book about Whitney High School.

Using a formula of high expectations, partental involvement and a selective admissions process, Whitney has built one of the jewels of the California educational system with about 95 percent of the students college bound and SAT scores to drool over.

But before principals nationwide begin to copy the forumla, Hume illustrates the neagative variables to such success. This school has been built on the backs of automatons who begin their quest for the HYP (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) track as early as third grade. Hume characterizes life at Whitney as a six-year experiment in nerves. Like the physics projects illustrated in the book, some students are one Alka-Seltzer short of an emotional explosion. AP classes and numerous extra-curriculars are means to the HYP end, not necessarily instrinsic desires to gain knowledge and life experience.

While Hume's portrayal represents a microcosm of Whitney, it reveals the predicament high-stakes plays in the educational accountability movement. Success is not in the subjective and personal nature of knowledge, but the impersonal (hence the faceless student on the cover of Hume's book and pictureless inside) ranking on standardized tests.

While Whitney may be at the top, others school continually try to knock it off, using the same twisted reason a Whitney junior spends $1,000 to increase his SAT score to 1560 then decides to retake it again -- "You can never have too high a score."

I believe in high expectations and no excuses for schools and students, but I am wary of a federal system trying to devise a formula to improve the education of tens of millions of children controlled by tens of millions of variables. When you try to control the beast, the beast ultimately ends of controlling you. Whitney students are perfect examples.

However, if Hume's book shows anything, it is that not just parental involvement is key to educational success, but local (not state or federal) control is vital to the success of any school. For whatever negative side effects, Whitney's formula works well for them. It is up to other schools to create their own.

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