Why America's best school may be no better than yours

Jay Matthews:

I have written many columns about the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County. Some readers have suggested I stop. They ask: Why is one school so important?

Here's the situation. I am an education writer who focuses on the best teachers and best schools, as measured by how much value they add to students' educations and lives. Jefferson is the most selective high school in the country. By many benchmarks -- faculty quality, course level, equipment -- it has to be considered among the best.

That is irresistible to me. Now I have found a Jefferson graduate, Chelsea Slade, who has given me a way to drag into my Jefferson obsession everyone who didn't go to Jefferson, which includes me and almost all of mankind.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 9, 2011 1:39 AM
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