Many Children Left Behind

I found a very interesting book and I have decided to use it as a catalyst for my multimedia contribution. Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools, edited by Deborah Meier and George Wood, is a compilation of essays by various educators. Many of the authors have been described as the most respected educational thinkers of our time and they include; Deborah Meier, Linda Darling-Hammond, George Wood, Alfie Kohn, Stan Karp, Monty Neil and Theodore R. Sizer. It is a noble attempt to get the opinion of educators out to the general public and combat the growing number of bureaucratic wordsmiths who flood the media with non-education rhetoric proposed to support their view of what our education system needs.

No Child Left.com reviewed this book and gave high points for its courageous efforts to spread the truth. Although the author of the review is not given they make some very valid points regarding the pitfalls and hidden agendas. NCLB is full of these broken promises, in his opening George Wood writes that NCLB is fundamentally flawed because it centers so much on the results of a few tests that destroy accountability and out children's success.

This book offers many interesting details about NCLB that are not fully addressed anywhere else. It only costs about $13.00 and I believe it would be a good read for anyone in this course. I have to admit that I would have liked to see a concise combined effort to create a document that challenges NCLB instead of this compilation of previously written works. I feel as if the book lacks the validity it deserves.