If you have a child in the American school system, know a child in the school system, ever were a child in the system or know anyone who was educated in America, you must read this book. Probably the most important book I've read in the last few years, in any field, and it gives an educated, official voice to many of the conclusions I've come to over the past several years of volunteering in schools. Yes, the system is very, very broken...but neither testing nor the currently in-vogue "choice" movement is going to save it. In fact, if anything, both are breaking it even further, even faster. And everything you think you know is wrong. Read this book. Our future depends on it.