Jonathan Kozol's marching

EdWeek has an interview with Jonathan Kozol on why he's joining the Save Our Schools march in DC next week:

The testing agenda that Duncan is perpetuating is segregative and divisive in yet another sense. In inner-city schools, where principals are working with a sword of threats and punishments above their heads -- for fear that they'll be fired if they cannot "pump the scores" -- they inevitably strip down the curriculum to those specific items that are going to be tested, often devoting two-thirds of the year to prepping children for exams. There's no time for arts or music or even for authentic children's books like the joyful works that rich kids still enjoy. No time for Pooh and Eeyore and The Hungry Caterpillar. "What help would lovely books like these be on their standardized exams?" Instead, the kids get pit-pat readers keyed to the next miserable tests that they'll be taking.
So culture is starved. Aesthetics are gone. Joy in learning is regarded as a bothersome distraction. "These kids don't have time for joy, or whim, or charm, or inquiry! Leave whim and happiness to the children of the privileged. Poor kids can't afford that luxury." Even good and idealistic inner-city principals tell me that they feel they have no choice.
So NCLB, in itself, adds a whole new level of division on the basis of a child's economic class or race. An apartheid of the intellect. One class enjoys the treasures of the earth and also learns to ask demanding and irreverent and insightful questions. The other class is trained to spit up predigested answers.