Miracle Children

Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises

De: Katie Benner, Erica L. Green

Narrado por: Christopher Ian Grant

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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Metropolitan Books

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Razor-sharp . . . A damning look at the continued impact of race on educational opportunities in America."
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Miracle Children is not just an exposé of a college scam, it's a keen dissection of our segregated schools and our segregated rewards, of a system so rigged that gaming it is the price of entrance. And it probes the mechanisms that Americans use to hide their own sins from themselves. In the chronicle of the American war on Black life, this book is essential reading."
—Eddie S. Glaude Jr., author of Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

"Miracle Children reads like a true-crime novel; you won’t be able to put it down. And when you do set it aside, you'll be drawn back to the real crime at the heart of the story: America only values Black children when they 'beat the odds,' odds America itself created. Benner and Green braid history, personal narrative, and voices from the past to tell a story that is American to its core, of a nation where too many Black people have no choice but to lie, cheat, and steal just to claim a fraction of what is freely granted to White America—an education."
—Bettina L. Love, author of Punished for Dreaming

"With meticulous reporting and a wellspring of empathy, Miracle Children lays bare not simply the failings of a single institution but the tangled history and flawed policy that allowed it to resemble a solution. This book shows what is at stake—for these students and for every American who cares about our future."
—Jelani Cobb, author of Three or More Is a Riot

"Miracle Children is essential reading for anyone concerned with the education of children, especially black children. Delving into the lives of the students, their parents, and the founders of T.M. Landry School in Louisiana, Benner and Green have captured the complexity of the story while providing a rich analysis of issues at the intersection of racial discrimination, academic achievement gaps, and college admissions. They demand that we ask hard questions: What is the purpose of a college education? How do we stress the critical importance of fundamental values such as honesty and integrity? This is a superb account."
—Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president emeritus, University of Maryland Baltimore County, inaugural Centennial Fellow at the American Council on Education

"A clear and nuanced account . . . [Benner and Green] describe the tension between the ideal of personal responsibility and the structural inequities in American society. . . . Alarming."
—Kirkus

"This engaging and well researched book would be a great read for anyone interested in modern American education and history."
—Booklist

A gripping narrative of an outrageous scandal

The authors do a great public service in detailing not only the deception at one school but the shameful national history that enabled it. The students, parents and staff who had the bravery to speak out are to be commended. I devoured the audiobook, which is well narrated and powerfully written. A must read for anyone who cares about educational inequity.

Value of education for all

History of what happened to some students. Wonder what happened to the school founders. Great story of education in Louisiana.

Fascinating story

This was fantastic BUT around the 60 percent mark I found myself so distracted by one question that was never answered to my satisfaction: WTF was wrong with the parents and the "teachers"? There are tons of examples of parents and the "teachers" thinking, worrying, or KNOWING that something is really wrong even before they enrolled their kids but they did it anyway. And then even though things just get worse they do nothing. Even when Mike is charged with assault for the second time, the parents do nothing. It's clear why the kids said nothing but I can't blame systemic racism etc. for all the parents' lack of action--especially those who are doctors or are otherwise educated and understand things are not normal. It got so egregious, I just found it hard to listen to yet another example of a parent being quoted as seeing the signs and not doing anything that it got hard to listen to. The kids got into the Ivy League, right? So that was enough to ignore the insane dude and his wife who ran the "school" even though the older kids were already very good students and could have gotten into good schools (though not the Ivys) on their own.