On the Death of Childhood and the Destruction of Public Schools: The Folly of Today's Education Policies and Practices Book

	Acknowledgments
	Introduction
Pt. I	Debunking Dumb Policies
1	The No Child Left Behind Act, a Plan for the Destruction of Public Education: Just Say No	1
2	A Surefire Way to Destroy America: Test Every Kid Every Year	13
3	The Governors' Debacle: The High-Stakes Testing Movement	17
4	Failing Children - Twice	23
5	Kindergarten Is Too Late	26
6	Testing Flunks Life	30
7	The Malevolent Tyranny of Algebra	34
8	Schools Should Not Prepare Students for the World of Work	39
9	Poverty Issues Get Short Shrift	45
10	April Foolishness: "A Nation At Risk" at Twenty	49
Pt. II	But What Does It All Mean?
11	What If "Falling Schools" Aren't? Or, What I Did Last Summer	61
12	Getting Dumber in School?	66
13	International Comparisons: An Excuse to Avoid Meaningful Educational Reform	76
14	No Excuses, Many Reasons: A Critique of the Heritage Foundation's "No Excuses" Report	81
15	The Capriciousness of High-Stakes Testing	94
16	Those Misleading SAT and NAEP Trends: Simpson's Paradox at Work	98
17	The Dumbing of America?	104
Pt. III	Explaining the World
18	Filet of School Reform, Sauce Diable	130
19	Edison's Light Dims: The Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall of H. Christopher Whittle	135
20	Playing It Crooked: Media and Political Distortion About the Condition of American Public Schools	152
21	The Right's Data-Proof Ideologues	167
22	Horace Mann and Today's Mandates: A Talk to the Horace Mann League	174
23	The End of Childhood	179
24	The Testing-Talent Disconnect	185
25	Long-Term Studies of Preschool: The Benefits Far Outweight the Costs	188