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As concerns mount over the costs and benefits of higher education, it may be worthwhile to glance at the benefits of high school education at present as well. Of course, high school costs, while high, are borne by the taxpayers in general, but it is reasonable to hope that there are sufficient benefits for such an outlay. One of the most frequently heard complaints of college professors is that their new students (and many of their older students) cannot seem to read and write. This author contends that American public high schools in general do not believe in having students read complete nonfiction books, but confine reading assignments to excerpts or textbooks; nor do they believe in having students do the research and writing necessary for serious term papers. In this article, Fitzhugh focuses on the high school flight from reading and writing and explains that American public high schools confine assigned reading mainly to works of fiction and assigned writing to personal and creative efforts. The author argues that if educators do not assign importance to reading nonfiction and writing term papers, it should be no surprise that when their students arrive at college or in the workplace, they cannot read or write very well. (Contains 7 footnotes.)

Letters from Hana Lee and Laura Arandes, students at Harvard University in Cambridge MA, are presented. Lee talks about how students from public schools can out-compete students from wealthy elite schools when it comes to academic excellence. On the other hand, Arandes talks about her freshman writing class.

The Boston Globe reported recently that Michelle Wie, the 16-year-old Korean-American golfing phenomenon, not only speaks Korean and English, but also has taken four years of Japanese and is beginning to study Mandarin Chinese. She is planning to apply early to Stanford University. I would be willing to bet, however, that in her high school academic writing has been limited to the five-paragraph essay, and outside reading assignments never include a complete nonfiction book.

Fitzhugh shares his views on what passes today for student academic writing. He claims that one's Romantic commitment to poetry, personal journals, and the like perhaps does credit to one's love of student fiction and one's pleasure in having something to put up on the refrigerator door. But if one doesn't ask one's students to read nonfiction and to write academic research papers before they leave school, one not only dumb down their opportunities, but also deprive one's society of the kind of clear, thoughtful writing it needs to maintain a democracy, power an economy, and enhance the daily lives of its citizens.

When was the last time a college history professor made it her business to find out the names and schools of the best high school history students in the country?