Jay Mathews
Jay Mathews (born April 5, 1945, in Long Beach, California) is an education reporter and online columnist with the Washington Post. Mathews attended Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, California, Occidental and Harvard Colleges and is a Vietnam veteran. Since coming to the Post in 1971, he has authored news reports and books about China, disability rights, the stock market, and several educational topics. Mathews won the 1999 Benjamin Fine Award for Outstanding Education Reporting for both features and column writing. His column Class Struggles appears weekly on the online version of the Post.
Mathews' fourth book, Class Struggle: What's Wrong (and Right) with America's Best Public High Schools, was published in March 1998. It explored elite American public high schools and criticized the selection process that offers advanced AP studies to only the top performing students. His rating system for high schools, the Challenge Index, is used by the Washington Post and Newsweek magazine annually to rank US high schools. Other books explored the Ivy League admissions system, and the growth of International Baccalaureate programs and their effect on academic improvement.