Books reviews, current events, and other musings

In Class Dismissed: A Year In The Life Of An American High School, A Glimpse Into The Heart Of A Nation, journalist Meredith Maran provides an eyewitness account of life at Berkeley High School. She focuses on three students throughout their senior years, but spends time with teachers, parents, and others to provide a general context. Her depiction adds a level of substance and reality to the often-heard complaints about dysfunctional public schools.

Berkeley High is a fascinating place, far from the racially and economically homogeneous high school I attended. The student body includes well-off, mostly white teenagers from the Berkeley hills, along with a significant Black population from poorer families. The school sponsors various only-in-Berkeley activities, such as poetry slams or African-American literature and dance classes. Also, some innovative programs attempt to help the troubled or disadvantaged youth, while other students concentrate on a college-bound track.

The teachers, or at least the ones she discusses, are enthusiastic and capable, but the system as a whole is not working. All kinds of chaos get in the way, culminating when one of the school buildings burns down due to arson. The school risks losing its accreditation because of differing achievement levels between blacks and whites, teachers are protesting their low salaries, and the administrative structure is barely functional.

With that backdrop, Maran traces the lives of three students. Autumn is a highly motivated biracial woman struggling to get into college while supporting her family financially and taking care of her younger siblings. Jordan is a well-to-do white teenager who's depressed by the death of his father. Keith is a popular but directionless black football player who has occasional scrapes with the Berkeley Police Department. Their experiences reveal the day-by-day life of a contemporary American teenager, their desires, frustrations, and successes.

Maran sticks to her direct observations: what people do and say. She didn't explain, for example, after describing a classroom interaction, whether the students are thinking "This is exciting", "This is bogus", or "This is boring". I generally prefer Studs Turkel style oral histories, where people reveal their personal impressions. Class Dismissed was worthwhile, but a little more depth would have been an improvement.

I'd recommend this book for the human face it places the national school system, in terms of both students and teachers. How to improve the schools is actually less clear to me than before I started the book. Maran concludes with a few recommendations; some, such as increased funds, seem rather obvious, while others, such as abolishing tracking (separating students into different classes according to perceived ability) are a lot more controversial.