"How a small group of extremely wealthy men have captured national education policy"

“When test scores become the goal of education by which students and schools are measured, then students in the bottom half — who will inevitably include disproportionate numbers of children who are poor, children with disabilities, children who barely speak English — will be left far behind, stigmatized by their low scores. If we were to focus on the needs of children, we would make sure that every pregnant woman got good medical care and nutrition, since many children born to women without them tend to have learning disabilities. We would make sure that children in poor communities have high-quality early childhood education so that they arrive in school ready to learn. We would insist that their teachers be trained to support their social, emotional, and intellectual development and to engage local communities on behalf of their children, as Dr. James Comer of Yale University has insisted for many years. And we would have national policies whose goal is to reduce poverty by expanding economic opportunity.”
 — Diane Ravitch lists a bunch of things that are never going to happen.