—A critical examination of high schools in wealthy suburbs, and the friction of increased academic competition between Asian Americans and whites—
The Non-fiction Feature
Race at the Top:
Asian Americans and Whites in Pursuit of the American Dream in Suburban Schools
Author: Natasha Warikoo
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Pages: 240 | 2022
When privileged children work incredibly hard in school, it’s easy to forget the ways in which private music lessons, expensive tutors, and a privileged community also enable their achievements…American meritocracy is built on exclusion.
The Memoir Spot
Learning in Public
by Courtney E. Martin
“This book is about the jar of good intentions that so many of us carry around these days….we put it by our tasteful succulent gardens next to our Black Lives Matter signs…The gift of adulthood is not a mortgage, I realized, but the freedom to pursue a moral life on your own terms, even if you are White, especially if you are White, and to let your children witness you trying.”
The Product Spot
“Sold a Story” – podcast
A podcast about how children learn to read in the U.S. Specifically, it’s about how a certain methodology of reading proliferated in schools, even though cognitive scientists proved the methodology unsound decades ago–teaching via this method actually made it harder for children to read.