Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies Hosts Book Signing for Alec Klein’s A Class Apart

Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies hosted a book signing and discussion featuring alumnus and professor Alec Klein, author of the new book A Class Apart: Prodigies, Pressure and Passion Inside One of America’s Best High Schools, on September 13, 2007. Dozens of fellow journalists, professors, students, and literary enthusiasts participated. The book, published by Simon and Schuster, highlights the success of Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Each year, Stuyvesant sends hundreds of its graduates to Ivy League colleges and it counts Nobel laureates and Academy Award-winners among its alumni. Klein chronicles the unconventional approach to education that makes the school unique.

“Stuyvesant remains the alternative universe of high school, where students are proud to admit they pull caffeinated all-nighters to study, where they don’t want to leave school at day’s end,” Klein writes. “Stuyvesant is, to many, the embodiment of the American dream, a school founded more than a century ago as a manual training school for boys that has become a haven for immigrants and the children of immigrants who want a better life.”

Klein is an award-winning Washington Post reporter. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The Baltimore Sun, and The Virginia Pilot.

In A Class Apart, Klein examines the lives of teachers and students at Stuyvesant to highlight behind-the-scenes drama. He profiles students like Mariya, a Ukrainian immigrant trying to balance love and her grade point average; Milo, a ten-year old prodigy; Jane, a poet with a heroin addiction; and Romeo, a football star who wants to go to Harvard. He also profiles faculty like Danny Jaye, an assistant principal who prides himself on being a “troublemaker in the name of helping students” and Jan Siwanowicz, a college-drop out.

Stuyvesant accepts only 3 percent of applicants, an acceptance rate lower than Harvard’s. Students must take a competitive exam to be considered for admission. Klein explores the questions associated with the school’s admission policy, and whether public funds should be used to educate a select group of students. He also raises a more fundamental question- whether it is healthy for teenagers to deal with the intense pressure associated with success at Stuyvesant.

“…what I tell my journalism students at Georgetown University to do is to be fair,” Klein says. “That’s what I aimed to do and what I hope I accomplished with A Class Apart. The book, I think, has its fair share of the good and the bad about Stuyvesant, showing, for instance, the amazing drive of its students as well as the unrelenting pressure of their parents.”