The author mentions attending a public school with crack vials in the playground as if the evoke the hardships of urban education.

The fact of the matter is that Hunter High School is the only public high school in NYC that both requires testing for entry and is not required to disclose their selection criteria. Granted it is not tie and blazer but it is selective and the best public education that extensive fundraising can buy.

While crime in the Upper East side neighborhood it is situated in is not unheard of, it is certainly not representative of the difficulties of urban and inner-city education.

"Most of the students immediately pegged him as a narc, called him 'plastic face' because of the make-up he wore, and fed him stories about sex and drugs."

(Multiple choice; 49% total grade because there are more than three choices.)

We know the above statement is true because

a) High school students are famous for their faithfulness to the truth.

b) We've all seen high school students smite their brows and confess to having been fooled by an adult.

c) The book is full of salacious stories of sex and drugs.

d) LA Times' staff enjoy the complete confidence of the Claremont High student body.

e) 'Narc' and 'plastic face' are typical of the creative and volitile kant uniquely current in the Claremont High lexicon.

f) All of the above.

When you have finished, you may remain seated at your desk to rest your head on your arms while you weep.

Susan Jeswine, Curmudgeoness

1221 First Ave #1719

Seattle, WA 98101

(206) 624-7599

sjeswine@qwest.net

Ref "Another load of crap" by dobrodude

and "Big Man on Campus" by Jeremy Iversen

I don't understand why the very real issues in public education that Mr. Iversen highlighted are any less real because he attended boarding school. It seems to me that the people who are being classist are those who would attempt to disregard the truth because it doesn't have the right "proletariat pedigree."

The book is actually lovely, fast paced, and very sympathetic to Mr. Iversen's high school friends of all backgrounds. As a fomer public school teacher of many years myself, I must sadly admit that his experiences ring far, far too true with what I saw every day.

"The notion of class is not welcome in the nation, but it is alive and well. The idea of a Phillips/Stanford alumni "dropping" into the hoi polloi and critiquing it makes about as much sense as an American kid fighting in Iraq. In both cases, there is a cultural/material difference that is profound and most likely coupled to an immediate desire to impugn without fully understanding what is going on around them."

As another Stanford graduate and the product of a Southern California public high school, I have to thank John Samulton for his post. At Stanford, I frequently had this very argument with my private boarding school educated peers, that their experience of various economic and social backgrounds in their boarding schools were a far cry from the cross-sections of society that one experiences in a standard public high school in a major urban environment (barring LA schools such as Beverly Hills High School and the like). Often they simply could not understand my assertion that being at a school such as Phillips or Andover, etc... meant that you had already been parsed by academics/wealth/social background and the like into being in an environment that epitomized that which you were either already a part of, or simply trying to attain (such as the many students who work hard to be accepted and who can only attend through scholarships and financial aid). Mr. Iversen has no idea what he's talking about. Why doesn't he go spend 6 months in the green zone in Baghdad and write a book about the state of Middle Eastern Politics while he's at it?

I have received Stanford chat group postings from Mr. Iversen encouraging the rest of us Stanford grads to cheer him on as he makes the talk show rounds. I am not interested in dignifying this request as I do not see anything to be gleaned from his "analysis" of the nation's education system based on 6 months at one public high school.

I teach at a small private college now, but for years I taught at a larger state school in Virginia where a favored major was in early education and that turned out a lot of the state's teachers. (Typically those who wanted to teach older grades majored in a field and obtained teaching certification.) I and some co-horts taught a LOT of education majors since several required courses are in the psychology department. I don't think I'm alone when I say that a lot of education majors are academically weak. I am NOT saying all teachers are dumb! but when there were poor students there was a good chance they were education (or criminal justice) majors. What that tells me is not that teaching is for the dumb. I have a lot of respect and admiration for my daughter's teachers. Rather, the requirements and expectations and pay made a lot of good students turn away from the idea of teaching as a career...and this was BEFORE "No Child Left Behind". Now when I teach the freshman level psychology course, we always get on the subject of their standardized end-of-grade testing. You would expect that they would complain and they do, but they make very good points. To prepare them for work and college, they have to pass a test that focuses on memorization, what a great idea huh? The poor teacher has to motivate a lot of them by reminding them that if they don't learn X, they won't pass the test and move on...well, the tests are often several weeks before the end of the school year and what does the teacher have to hold over the kids' heads then? This incubates an attitude of "If it isn't on the test, there is no point in learning it". Freshman who remember that experience aren't jumping on the bandwagon to teach either.

Having identified a problem, I must admit that I have no solution. Maybe others do.