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Join us at MLK Library for an Author Talk with Erica Green and Katie Benner to discuss their book Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises.
Register for a chance to experience Erica Green and Katie Benner take a deep dive into Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises.
This program will include the following:
Thank you to The DC Library Foundation for their generous purchase of 50 copies of the book to provide to attendees in need.
The DC Public Library Foundation partners with the DC Public Library to enhance Washington, DC’s public libraries, bringing private philanthropy together with government support to ensure that our libraries deliver the highest quality of service to the District’s residents. With the help of many generous people, the Foundation provides educational programs for children and youth, workforce development training, cultural events, and collection enhancements for DC’s libraries.
A riveting investigation into a school, a scam, and a notorious college admissions scandal that exposes the inequalities and racial segregation of American education, from two award-winning New York Times journalists
T.M. Landry College Prep, a small private school in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, boasted a 100 percent college acceptance rate, placing students at nearly every Ivy League university in the country. The spectacle of Landry students opening their acceptance letters to Harvard and Yale was broadcast on television and even celebrated by Michelle Obama. It became a national ritual to watch the miraculous success of these youngsters—miraculous because Breaux Bridge is one of the poorest counties in the country, ranked close to the bottom for test scores and high school graduation rates. T.M. Landry was said to be “minting prodigies,” and the prodigies were often black.
How did the school do it? It didn’t: It was a scam, pulled off with fake transcripts and personal essays telling fake stories of triumph over adversity. Worse, Landry’s success concealed a nightmare of alleged abuse and coercion. In a yearslong investigation, Katie Benner and Erica L. Green explored the lives of the students, the school, the town, and Ivy League admissions to understand why black teens were pressured to trade in racial stereotypes of hardship for opportunity.
Gripping and illuminating, Miracle Children argues that the lesson of T.M. Landry is not that the school gamed the system but that it played by the rules—that its deceptions and abuses were the outcome of segregated schools, inequitable education, and the belief that elite colleges are the nation’s last path to life-changing economic opportunity.
Erica L. Green, is an award-winning journalist at The New York Times and was named a best education reporter in the country by the Education Writers Association in 2021. She is also the coauthor of Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City, with Wes Moore. She and her team at The Baltimore Sun were 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalists for their coverage of the death of Freddie Gray and the riots that followed. She covers the White House and lives in Maryland.
Katie Benner is an investigative reporter for The New York Times, where she has covered the Department of Justice and Silicon Valley. She was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of workplace sexual harassment. She has worked at publications including CNN Money, Fortune, and Bloomberg, and is an MSNBC contributor. She has appeared on CNN, CNBC, PBS NewsHour, and the radio program Marketplace. She lives in Washington, DC.
Adam Harris is an author and journalist based in Virginia.
He is the author of The State Must Provide: Why America’s Colleges Have Always Been Unequal—and How to Set Them Right. His next book, Is This America?, a narrative history of the South’s influence on American politics, will be published by Pantheon.
Adam is currently a senior fellow at New America’s Education Policy program. He is also a keynote speaker with The Lavin Agency and has spoken at universities across the country.
He contributes to The Atlantic and The Argument. His essays and reporting have also appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, and EBONY. Earlier in his career, he covered education, the American South, and national politics as a staff writer at The Atlantic, reported for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and worked at ProPublica.
He makes regular media appearances on PBS, CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, C-SPAN, and NPR programs such as Fresh Air, All Things Considered, and Marketplace.
Taken together, his work examines how history, power, and place continue to shape American life.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Author Talk |
