Orwellian 'Parent Trigger' Laws Have Gun Aimed at Wrong Target

commondreams.org — Since No Child Left Behind became law, schools where there are lots of poor kids have been turned into brutal testing factories, where the focus is on raising test scores rather than raising children. Even so, the test scores inexorably reflect the economic disadvantages of poor communities, as parents each year continue to receive the federally-mandated letters telling them their schools are failing.  Some parents shake their heads and shrug off the letters because they know their child’s teacher is doing the best she can.  Others get frustrated and angry.  And yet most of these parents do not know that Karl Rove and his little band of Texans created NCLB with their dismay and frustration in mind, in order to replace public education, or to “blow it up a bit,” as former Assistant Secretary of Education Susan Neuman told Time Magazine in 2008.

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