I Write Books To Change The World.

As Damaging As The Obsessive Emphasis On Testing Often Proves To Be For Kids In General, I Believe That The Effects Are Still More Harmful In Those Schools In Which The Resources Available To Help The Children Learn The Skills That Will Be Measured By These Tests Are Fewest, The Scores They Get Are Predictably The Lowest, And The Strategies Resorted To By Principals In Order To Escape The Odium Attaching To A Disappointing Set Of Numbers Tend To Be The Most Severe.

Many Of Us Regard Ourselves As Mildly Liberal Or Centrist Politically, Voice Fairly Pleasant Sentiments About Our Poor Children, Contribute Money To Send Poor Kids To Summer Camp, Feel Benevolent. We're Not Nazis; We're Nice People. We Read Sophisticated Books. We Go To Church. We Go To Synagogue. Meanwhile, We Put Other People's Children Into An Economic And Environmental Death Zone. We Make It Hard For Them To Get Out. We Strip The Place Bare Of Amenities. And We Sit Back And Say To Ourselves, "well, I Hope That They Don't Kill Each Other Off. But If They Do, It's Not My Fault.

Nationally, Overwhelmingly Non-white Schools Receive $1,000 Less Per Pupil Than Overwhelmingly White Schools.

When I Was Young, I Was Religious.

Apartheid Education, Rarely Mentioned In The Press Or Openly Confronted Even Among Once-progressive Educators, Is Alive And Well And Rapidly Increasing Now In The United States.