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Students describe the school policies and practices influencing their educational trajectories and peer relationships. Of particular importance are the significance of segregated and unequally valued middle schools and the inequalities attached to a rigid track system that includes placement in the International Baccalaureate Program, Advancement Via Individual Determination Program, or non-honors college preparatory classes.

Students reveal unequal patterns of surveillance and regulation by race/ethnicity, class, gender, and academic track. While students in the school’s top classes describe having a free pass to move around campus, students outside of these courses, especially Latinas/os, encounter control and punishment. Asian Americans, on the other hand, express more academic restrictions where they are held to higher standards because of the racialized academic profiling that expects them to excel in their courses.

This chapter reveals the intensification of a tutoring industry. Some students—primarily middle and upper middle class Asian American students–receive extensive tutoring in Chinese schools and from for-profit organizations. In contrast, many Latina/o students across class position receive no tutoring or limited tutoring. Such unequal access to tutoring fuels academic and social differences, and some teachers are even changing their curriculum in ways that benefit students with tutoring.

The chapter focuses on the academic and social hierarchies at the school and students’ roles in perpetuating such hierarchies. Examples focus on how students of color are differently labeled “smart,” “stupid,” “sporty,” or “stupid” while White students are believed to be less identifiable. There are also examples of anti-immigrant posturing among some Asian Americans that is linked to larger assimilationist imperatives.

This chapter exposes forms of resistance. From claiming an identity, playing with stereotypes, to defying typification, students creatively carve out their sense of selves and challenge others’ perceptions. Organizationally, a smaller group of students and teachers create alternative campus spaces in classroom and through the student organization MEChA that are inclusive, oppositional, or overly political.

Beginning with students’ reflections on the racial/ethnic divides on campus, this chapter provides the book’s socio-political and academic context. I challenge the limitations of studies and policies that focus on a so-called achievement gap. I then explain the neoliberal and neoconservative context, how this work adds to the academic scholarship, the book’s macro-meso-micro framework (which includes a brief history of Mexican Americans, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans). The introduction ends with a chapter outline.

Teachers and administrators explain the educational differences between students. Such explanations focus on biological and cultural arguments where Asian Americans are assumed to value schooling and hard work more than Latinas/os. Along with a discussion of the general silence regarding Whites, white privilege, and whiteness in general at the school, there is also consideration of how federal educational policies that emphasize performance on standardized tests influence school discourses and practices.

Reflecting on my experiences sharing the research findings with the school, this chapter conveys the urgency and the difficulty of change. While presenting, I learned that some heard my analysis through the same frameworks that I aimed to critique. Others found it difficult to transform school practices in the current period of schooling where assessment drives education.

Beginning with a discussion of a program that was established at the school after my research, this chapter discusses what the high school teaches us about the detrimental impacts of the current state of U.S. schooling. In many ways, the high school under study is any-school USA. Just as it is premised on competition, individualism, and assimilation, it overlooks the significance of opportunity and social gaps and the wealth of knowledge, experiences, and resources that its students, their families, and the surrounding communities possess.