Best Book Chapter of the Year

Jay Matthews:

I was ready to like Peter Sacks' new book, "Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education." He is a terrific reporter with a keen sense of weak spots in conventional wisdom about schools. And since the word "class" in the title of this column has always had a double meaning, I was eager to read the work of someone who shared my view that socioeconomic differences are at the root of our failure to help many of our brightest kids get the educations they deserve.

It turns out Sacks has written an exceptional book, with one particular chapter that blew me away. But my first quick read made me grumpy, for reasons that have more to do with my own personal flaws and biases than his good work.

I started with the Washington thing, what all we journalists working in our nation's capital do when checking out a new book -- look for our names in the index. Sadly, I wasn't there. Well, maybe the acknowledgments? No again. The fact that Sacks and I have never met, as far as I can remember, may have something to do with that. Still, it wasn't a good beginning for me.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 16, 2007 12:14 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas