Erica Green and Katie Benner: "Miracle Children"

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 Green and Katie Benner will be joined in conversation by Baltimore Banner education reporter Liz Bowie.

About the Authors:

Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent in the Washington bureau of The New York Times, with a focus on federal policy and civil rights. Before covering the White House, she covered education for 13 years, six of them at The Times covering the U.S. Department of Education and civil rights enforcement in the nation’s schools. Green joined The Times in March 2017 from The Baltimore Sun, where she covered the Baltimore City Public School System. In that role, she covered the district’s families, educators, and reform efforts, and produced a wide range of investigations. Those projects focused on topics such as school funding, special education, school violence, the juvenile justice system and school segregation. Green’s education stories have led to changes in laws and policies. Her education coverage also has won more than one dozen local, state and national journalism awards.

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.

About the Moderator:

Liz Bowie is a Maryland education reporter for the Baltimore Banner. She covers how statewide education decisions are made: Who wields the power, who wins, who loses and what that means for Maryland's kids. She spent more than two decades covering city, county and state education issues for The Baltimore Sun. Her favorite stories are those that focus on students. She was a Spencer Fellow in Education Reporting at Columbia University.

About the Program:

• Doors will open to registered attendees at 6 pm.
• A local bookseller will be on-site and have books available for purchase.
• Free parking vouchers are available to program attendees who park at the Franklin Street Garage (15 W. Franklin Street) after 4pm. Ask Pratt event staff for your parking voucher prior to or after the program.
• There is no registration required for virtual attendance, simply visit the Enoch Pratt Free Library's Facebook or Youtube page.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Enoch Pratt Free Library