The pressure to succeed in our nation's most competitive public high schools is often crushing. Striving to understand this insular world, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes spent a year at California's Whitney High, a school so renowned that parents move across town-and across the world-hoping to enroll their children. That's because schools like Whitney deliver everything parents want: love of learning, a sense of mission, and SAT scores that pave the way to elite universities. Attending such a school, of course, carries its own toll: High-achieving, pressured kids survive on espresso and four hours' sleep a night, falling into despair if they get a B. Lively, personal, and very readable, School of Dreams uncovers what works-and what doesn't-at this model high school, offering parents, students, and teachers some powerful messages about public education today.

愛德華·休姆斯（Edward Humes）

新聞記者，曾獲得普利策新聞奬。休姆斯的作品包括《新生兒加護病房的春天》（Baby E.R）、暢銷書《密西西比泥沼》（Mississippi Mud》、《公平審列》（Mean Justice）以及獲得美國會年度非小說類大奬的《無論我多人聲音呼喊》（No Matter How Loud I Shout）。休姆斯現居住在南加州。