Passed on: Public School Children in Failing American Schools

Since the passing of No Child Left Behind in 2001, American schools have emphasized test scores to measure school performance. Even as teachers have fought to get rid of this detrimental trend, today the new corporate reformers, and even our own government leaders, support high-stakes testing to evaluate teachers. They also promote the privatization of our public schools by turning them into charter and online schools, bringing big profits to many corporations and blatantly ignoring the problems of poverty and underfunding in our public schools.

Sadly, many corporate reformers turn a blind eye to the real problems that teachers face today: trying to teach in classrooms that are filled with an overwhelmingly high number of pregnant teens, children who cannot read beyond the third grade, and children who attend violent neighborhood schools that are dangerously underfunded and underprepared to deal with their daily heartaches.

Passed On gives us an honest portrayal of what teachers and students are up against in poor, failing American schools today, and provides a much-needed front-line perspective in the current school reform debates.