A citizens" guide to what"s wrong with the nation"s radical federal education legislation--and a passionate call for change <BR>The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has become the most fiercely debated education issue of this election year, and it will be at the center of the national conversation about schools for the foreseeable future. NCLB, signed into law in 2002, purports to improve public schools--and especially the way they serve poor children--by enforcing a system of standards and accountability through high-stakes testing and sanctions. It is radically affecting the life of schools around the country. <BR>Many Children Left Behind is a devastating brief against NCLB. Far from improving public schools and increasing the ability of the system to serve poor and minority children, the authors argue, the law is doing exactly the opposite. Here some of our most prominent, respected voices in education--including Deborah Meier, Alfie Kohn, and Theodore R. Sizer--come together to show us how, point by point, NCLB undermines the things it claims to improve: <BR>-How NCLB punishes rather than helps poor and minority kids and their schools<BR>-How NCLB helps further an agenda of privatization and an attack on public schools<BR>-How the focus on testing and test preparation dumbs down classrooms<BR>-How we need alternatives to construing the idea of accountability in terms of test scores and sanctions. <BR>Educators and parents around the country are feeling the harshly counterproductive effects of NCLB. This book is an essential guide to understanding what"s wrong and where we should go from here.

"In this slim but impassioned manifesto, the founding members of an education think tank argue that the controversial and underfunded No Child Left Behind Act, as currently implemented, is 'more likely to undermine...the nation's public education system than to improve it.' The first section delineates the 'baffling' and unfortunate consequences (e.g., cutting kindergarten nap time and middle school recess) of needing more time to prepare for mandated high-stakes tests. The second section looks outside the classroom at gaps in school spending, public involvement (participation on school boards has dropped from one citizen in 500 to one in 20,000) and student health (black children in Detroit, for example, are 16 times more likely to be overexposed to lead than are their white counterparts). As Alfie Kohn (Punished by Rewards) argues, built-in negative consequences make NCLB 'a stalking horse for privatization.' In the third section, Monty Neil, executive director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, offers alternative plans that place accountability more firmly on the shoulders of the state than on the test performance of the child. Though occasionally repetitive, this book is a clarion call for a public education that serves all children well and a reminder that our functioning democracy is at stake. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is counterproductive and destructive to the goal of improving public education in the United States, collectively argue the contributors of these six essays. They describe how the "test and punish" regime of the NCLB, because disabilities are strongly correlated with poverty, will further damage the ability of schools in poor communities to provide for their students as they fall behind in testing scores and are punished for it financially. They also explore how the NCLB can be considered a Trojan horse for school privatization and put forth an alternative agenda for school reform.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Deborah Meier is the MacArthur Award-winning founder of the Central Park East School in East Harlem and the Mission Hill School in Boston. The author of The Power of Their Ideas and Will Standards Save Public Education? (Beacon / 0441-3 / $12.00 pb), she lives in Hillsdale, New York, and Boston, Massachusetts.