A Dose of Reality in High School Reading

Over in The Washington Post, crack education writer Jay Mathews laments the absence of non-fiction on high school "required reading" lists.  "I am not dismissing the delights of Twain, Crane, Buck, Saroyan and Wilder," Mathews writes. "But I think I would also have enjoyed Theodore H. White, John Hersey, Barbara Tuchman and Bruce Catton if they had been assigned."

He's right.  I can't remember ever being assigned any non-fiction in high school, apart from in a journalism class where a wise...