High School Confidential: Secrets of an Undercover Student [Hardcover]

Some days it seems like everywhere you look some adult is spouting off about the problems of our youth: teen sex, teen pregnancy, teen drugs, our failing schools, and on and on. To these experts in far-away offices, the answers seem clear cut: more rules, more programs, more standards. That's gotta work, right?

What Jeremy Iversen has done is more valuable than all the pundit's pontifications combined. He actually went, undercover, inside a high school and reported what actually goes on from the student's point of view. While the general facts are not shocking (kids have sex, get in fights, and ditch class), Iversen's narrative is completely engrossing and his continual examples of how reform-minded adults continually fail to make an impact is enlightening.

For anyone who wants the details of high school life, or even a story more entertaining and gripping and hilarious than any fictionalized TV portrayal, Iversen's book is a must-read.

I have been using Jeremy Iversen's High School Confidential in my Critical Analysis and Composition course at Santa Monica College for two semesters now. I speak truthfully when I say that I have never received more polished or more passionate essays than the ones my students compose in response to this book. Even when my students disagree with Iversen's observations or question the validity of the situations, they are completely engaged in the material. It is rare that an instructor has to calm every student in the class from interjecting an opinion when discussing a text. And it is even more rare that almost every student independently refers to specific passages of a book when backing up arguments. But the book is not just a dynamic discussion piece. The questions it poses energize students to really refine their compositions because they care as much about the material as the author does.

Iversen presents something young readers have been salivating for. Instead of a sociological graduate dissertation or an op-ed piece from an education reporter, High School Confidential actually takes its reader on an intimate journey into the heart of one Southern California high school. It is written completely from the students' perspective, not an adult attempting to navigate through the murky waters of adolescence. It does not pretend to speak for all American high schools or every contemporary teenager's experience. But through its vast array of characters and situations it delves into the greater crisis of public education that politicians seem to be tap dancing around but lack the courage to face with pragmatic reality. As a community college instructor, the fact that there is little focus on subject matter or practical college preparation in Mirador High School classes doesn't surprise me in the least. And my students are reinforcing Iversen's assessment when they admit that High School Confidential, while not entirely their own experience, isn't far from it, especially when considering the classroom instruction sections.

However, the real strength of Iversen's book is that he certainly has his own assessments but avoids burdening the reader with heavy-handedness. He wants and allows his audience to come to its own conclusions in the end. This is not a book that tells us what we already know: that teenagers are doing drugs and having sex. Nor is it a policy study by a self-proclaimed pundit who wants to weigh in ankle-deep on the current state of education. This is a book about the social, cultural and political environment of one particular American public high school, and yet it speaks volumes of a greater truth. Iversen finds that the crisis we face in public education is past the stage of suggestion or simply putting a Band Aid over a leg that's been chopped off. He is saying that it is time for an honest discussion that avoids political correctness and addresses exactly what's going on. He doesn't offer solutions. Rather, the book presents a real situation that slaps us in the face and demands that action be taken--not by our government, but by our citizens and American students themselves.

High School Confidential is not everyone's experience. But it is one that we must take seriously and not discard as a fabrication simply because what we are presented with is unpleasant. For teachers looking for a text that focuses on a microcosm of American society in order to develop critical analysis skills, I can't think of a better text. The book is divided into easily accessible sections that provide a wealth of material to construct assignments from, whether tackling the text as a whole or having students isolate universal, thematic content from specific chapters and explore individual relationships amongst the characters. The most interesting papers I have received have been ones that analyze single situations or relationships through theme and show how these sections of the book are addressing a larger issue in society beyond the pettiness of high school hallways or teenage parties. Loyalty, regret, courage, love, illusion--it's all here. The teenagers of Mirador High School all seem to be trying on different masks, and Iversen admittedly puts on one of his own. And in the end, we find out that American education itself has a mask that needs to be ripped off and exposed. Agree or disagree with High School Confidential. But what it's really asking us to do is take what it has to say seriously, and most of all, to care.

I am looking forward to leaving work today and finishing this book. I am almost at the end and have to say that I am very pleasantly surprised. The idea of going undercover is an awesome one. And the writing is a lot better than I thought it would be. I can't wait for his next undercover assignment...wherever it may be!

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