Back in 2018, the New York Times reporters Katie Benner and Erica L. Green exposed the disturbing reality of the T.M. Landry college prep school in rural Louisiana. Celebrated as a “miracle” institution that successfully sent underprivileged black students to elite colleges, Benner and Green uncovered a miserable school that doctored college applications and bullied its students. Seven years later, Benner and Green have written Miracle Children, a book as much about race, education and false promises in contemporary America as it is about T.M. Landry itself. While Benner and Green’s narrative won’t please everyone, it should be required reading for those on both the left and right who peddle magical educational solutions to historically complex social problems.

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