Elite boarding schools endeavor to instill in their students elite-class solidarity, strong beliefs in both meritocracy and the essential rightness of the status quo, and practical political know-how. Each of these objectives is wholly compatible with the self-interest of their students and their families. In the vast majority of working-class schools, class-consciousness is discouraged, individual effort is valorized, and collective effort is denigrated; faith in meritocracy and the rightness of the status quo go unchallenged, and practical political know-how is replaced by a naive, Disneyland concept of American democracy. None of this is compatible with the self-interest of working-class students, and, therefore, they remain unmotivated and experience little school success. Weekend schools for children run by the American Socialist Party from 1900 to 1920 were based on assumptions compatible with working-class self-interest and offer a model for motivating and educating working-class students today. (Contains 6 notes.)