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No Child's Behind Left

They take away your overtime, your 40-hour week, your regulatory protection against corporate marauders, your right to courtroom justice, your protection

No Child's Behind Left

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the passage of No Child Left Behind. Before George W. Bush invaded Iraq he knew he

No Child's Behind Left

By Greg Palast
Excerpt from Armed Madhouse
They take away your overtime, your 40-hour week, your regulatory protection against corporate marauders, your right to courtroom justice, your protection against unfair trade, even the right to get your ballot counted. But there’s always hope. Hope is the last thing to go. And your hope is your kids, that they’ll have an opportunity you didn’t have. On January 21, 2004, the President told you they’d have to take that away too. On that night, deep into his State of the Union sermon to Congress, when sensible adults had turned off the tube or kicked in the screen, our President opened a new front in the class war. And like the one in Iraq, it began with a lie. “By passing the No Child Left Behind Act,” our President told us, “We are regularly testing every child…and making sure they have better options when schools are not performing.”
“And at Daddy’s Polo Club, the Waiter Is Called A…”

No Child's Behind Left

Go ahead, George, and lie to me. Lie to my dog. Lie to my sister. But don’t you ever lie to my kids.
Deep into your State of the Siege lecture, long after sensible adults had turned off the tube or kicked in the screen, you came after our children. “By passing the No Child Left Behind Act,” you said, “We are regularly testing every child … and making sure they have better options when schools are not performing.”

Profit and Education Don't Mix Britain should learn a lesson from the US

For The Observer/Guardian UK
The daring escape of three very expensive headmasters from the schools to which they were confined, prompted a flummoxed Education Secretary David Blunkett to do what he does best at times of crisis: issue a press release announcing a new programme to expand the privatisation of state schools. This desperate wheeze was for so-called city academies, which will operate outside the control of local education authorities and free of the Government’s own curriculum and employment controls.