Hollywood High

Learning Like a Girl

Educating Our Daughters in Schools of Their Own

by Diana Meehan

PublicAffairs, 324 pp., $24.95

This book, a back-patting history by cofounder Diana Meehan, of the early years (if you can call the 1990s "early") of the Archer School for Girls in Brentwood, California--yes, that Brentwood, where O.J. killed Nicole, if he did it--comes with jacket raves by Arianna Huffington, the late Betty Friedan, and Brooke Shields. Three of my favorite people! Plus Tom Hanks, whose daughter graduated from Archer. Hanks says that if you enroll at Archer, you'll "one day rule our city-state and the world."

You'd better, because your parents are going to be out a hell of a lot of dough. At $27,200 in tuition a year, plus a $2,180 mandatory "transportation fee," plus God knows what else, Archer, founded in 1995, appears to be the most expensive private day school in Los Angeles, beating out long-established all-girls Marlborough in Hancock Park ($25,250 a year) as well as the co-ed, ultra-prestigious Harvard-Westlake in Bel Air and North Hollywood (a mere $25,000). At Archer, though, at least according to Meehan, you get something extra that could well be worth that top dollar: total immersion in the "different voice" philosophy of Carol Gilligan, the feminist theorist who believes that girls, unlike boys, are gentle creatures who shy away from competition, whether in academics or in sports, and who would rather (in Meehan's words) "be part of a caring community" where they "compete with one eye on the emotional reactions of others, caring about feelings as much as winning." The watchwords at Archer, says Meehan, are "cooperative," "progressive," "connected learning," and of course, "caring."

"A caring community is a good place to learn," writes Meehan, and "a caring community is also a place to heal." Hence the title of her book: Learning Like a Girl.