A "vivid, unpredictable, fair, balanced and . . . very entertaining" look at how education reforms have changed one typical American elementary school over the course of a year (Jay Mathews, The Washington Post)

The pressure is on at schools across America. In recent years, reforms such as No Child Left Behind have created a new vision of education that emphasizes provable results, uniformity, and greater attention for floundering students. Schools are expected to behave more like businesses and are judged almost solely on the bottom line: test scores.

To see if...