Miracle Workers

No one would confuse Seward Park High School with Eton. Half the students at this underfunded, overcrowded facility on New York City's Lower East Side are from single-parent homes, and 65% come from families eligible for welfare. As many as 150 have been abandoned by their parents or are from families that have been evicted. Drugs and alcohol are a way of life. That any learning takes place under such circumstances is nothing short of miraculous. But miracles can happen, as former New York Times reporter Samuel Freedman demonstrates in Small Victories: The Real World of a Teacher, Her Students & Their High School (Harper & Row; 431 pages; $22.95).

Freedman, who spent the 1987-88 school year observing Seward, focuses on English and journalism teacher Jessica Siegel. A self-proclaimed "salvage and reclamation" expert, Siegel, 41, struggles to pull her predominantly black, Hispanic and Asian students into the safety of the middle class. "I put so much energy and so much emotion into those kids," says Siegel, "sometimes I think my job is being a professional mother." Her efforts are rewarded as she watches the most dedicated of her charges march off to Syracuse, Sarah Lawrence and the University of Chicago.

Despite its often brutal subject matter -- one student hangs himself -- this is an upbeat book about triumphing against the odds. Freedman offers moving portraits of two immigrant kids -- one Chinese, the other Dominican -- battling to make it in their adopted country. He also captures the rewards of teaching, while exposing the hardships. Considering the obstacles confronting Seward's teachers and their students, Freedman's book may be misnamed. The victories seem large indeed.