This is a thoughtful, well-researched book from someone with a long history of watching educational reform efforts unfold, and indeed being part of them; she was a high-ranking official in the US DoE during the crafting of NCLB. Chapter by chapter she spells out what is wrong with ideas of choice, NCLB, testing, and accountability as any kind of panacea. Indeed, instead of being a panacea these approaches are undermining American public schools. Some of my quick takeaways: Race to the Top is ill-conceived and arbitrarily developed; the testing industry is called by an insider "incredibly slipshod;" the high stakes attached to testing can lead to cheating, and charter schools have 4 times the incidence of documented cheating as traditional public schools; she likes Catholic schools where everyone takes the same college-prep courses and minorities attain better graduation rates and college success, but charters are threatening these schools; public schools and education for all children are the foundation of our democracy and parents should be able to trust that their neighborhood school is a great place to educate their child; if a high-quality curriculum is in place, American students can do very well on international tests and on the NAEP (she points to Minnesota's earth science curriculum and Minnesota's 8th-graders' results on international tests in that subject; she says of all the states, only Massachusetts had high quality curriculum in place for all subjects). However, this is a bit dated at this point. At the time of the writing, the Common Core Standards were being developed. Let us see if these help at all.