Money Matters.

• Author: JOHNSON, DIRK
• Position: Left behind despite the boom economy

THEY ATTEND THE SAME SCHOOL AND SHARE THE SAME DREAMS. BUT THERE'S ONE BIG DIFFERENCE.

STILLMAN VALLEY, ILLINOIS

They cross paths in the hallways of Stillman Valley High School, but for ReNee Hancock, 16, and Ada Estrella, 17, the road home leads in opposite directions.

Once a friend pulled up to ReNee's large new two-story house with its three-car garage, and exclaimed. "I want your house!" Then she looked at ReNee, with her styled blonde hair and designer clothes, and added. "I want your life."

Ada, however, doesn't tell people where she lives. Once, after a date, she instructed the boy to drop her off at a friend's place. She made up a story about her parents' not being home because she didn't want the boy to know that she lives in a white metal house trailer in Rolling Meadows, a mobile-home park located near a junkyard of rusting old cars.

I'm ashamed of living here, she says. In fact, her family's three-bedroom, double-wide trailer represents a step up; until last month, she, her parents, and her 6-year-old brother lived in a single wide.

Turn on the TV, and the economic news is dazzling: The United States is in the midst of its longest period of sustained growth in history. The stock market is breaking records, and the unemployment rate is the lowest it's been since 1962. The boom has created more American millionaires than ever.

But there's another story we don't see--that of people who are left behind. Across the country, in suburban trailer-parks, depressed farm towns, and urban ghettos, there are pockets of poverty the boom times have simply passed over. Indeed, as the rich have grown richer, the gap between rich and poor has widened (see page 17).

Perhaps nowhere is that gap felt more acutely than in school, where students from different economic backgrounds rub shoulders in the hallways. High school students are painfully conscious of economic status--where you live, what you have, and what you wear can determine your spot on the food chain. And by high school, the stage is already set for those at the bottom to stay there.

AN AMERICAN BOOMTOWN

Until recently, Stillman Valley was a sleepy town of farmers and merchants. But lately, the region has been growing, with newcomers from the industrial city of Rockford, or the suburbs of Chicago, 80 miles away. Ever grander subdivisions are sprouting in fields that were planted with corn and beans just a few seasons ago.

"It used to be, people tried to keep up with the Joneses," says Gary Neurenberger, the principal at Stillman Valley Junior...