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bittersweet_symphony's review against another edition
5.0
A great book for making sense of No Child Left Behind, and how it has become one of the greatest factors in pushing great teachers out of education, and leading to the demise of public education one school at a time.
roddej86's review against another edition
4.0
A great series of essays on the effects of No Child Left Behind on the school lives and educational communities of American kids. It's a really short, easy, and accessible read, and the authors really deftly synthesize the effects of NCLB on a variety of spheres from the pedagogical and instructional to the social, societal, and political. Many of the authors even provide a fairly balanced and empathic viewpoint of NCLB - which I don't think is an obligation, but I appreciated the basic respect for the fact that many who support these laws do so out of good intentions. There's such a tendency in discussions about education reform for all sides to construct straw men and assume ill intentions. I appreciated that that wasn't the case in this book.
Although I have my compunctions about NCLB, and really agree with the policy analysis and many conclusions of this book, I was deeply frustrated by the position of some of the writers that 20 years or a century (!) is an adequate timeline for getting our communities schools that put kids from low income communities on the same trajectory of kids who were lucky enough to be born in more privileged zip codes. There are kids sitting in classrooms right now, and the solutions and discussions offered in this book don't address what we can do for those children. The answer can't be nothing.
Although I have my compunctions about NCLB, and really agree with the policy analysis and many conclusions of this book, I was deeply frustrated by the position of some of the writers that 20 years or a century (!) is an adequate timeline for getting our communities schools that put kids from low income communities on the same trajectory of kids who were lucky enough to be born in more privileged zip codes. There are kids sitting in classrooms right now, and the solutions and discussions offered in this book don't address what we can do for those children. The answer can't be nothing.
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