Another Planet: A Year in the Life of a Suburban High School

With a novelist's eye, Elinor Burkett takes readers behind the school system's closed doors, revealing a world of mixed messages, manufactured myths, and political hype.

In the wake of school shootings across the country, one question haunted America: What is going wrong inside our nation's schools? To find out, award-winning journalist Elinor Burkett spent nine months -- from the opening pep rally to graduation day -- in a suburban Minneapolis high school. She attended classes, hung out with students, listened to parents, and joined teachers on the front lines.

She soon discovered that, post-Columbine, fears about loners and misfits, Smoker's New Year (a pot holiday), Zero Tolerance policies, and school lockdowns have become as much a part of a teen's high school experience as dating and Clearasil. But Burkett goes even deeper and makes some startling conclusions in this poignant expos of the real problems facing educators, parents, and the children they try to teach.

Author: Elinor Burkett
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 08/20/2002
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.66lbs
Size: 7.96h x 5.48w x 0.88d
ISBN: 9780060505851

About the Author
Burkett, Elinor: -

Elinor Burkett has worked as a newspaper reporter, university professor, and magazine writer. A Pulitzer Prize--nominated journalist and the author of eight previous books, she divides her time between the Catskill Mountains of New York and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.