ABSTRACT
Poverty is evident in the conditions in which students attempt to study: Johnson and Johnson report combatting cockroaches in their classrooms each morning; one day during a heat wave the school gym reached 120 degrees. Bureaucrats, Johnson and Johnson conclude, must issue no more "administrative pronouncements" that stifle teachers' creativity. Veteran teachers told Johnson and Johnson that for many children, school breakfast and lunch are the only meals they eat all day. While catastrophic for children and their teachers, school reform has been good for business, as the test-grading industry has boomed. After 5 days of LEAP testing—but still facing 3 days of Iowa testing—the children, Johnson and Johnson testify, are in a bad mood. Somehow the ordeal won't end, as the state of Louisiana then requires 2 days of LEAP test "field testing". The rationale for this sadism is ascertaining items to include on the LEAP test for next year.
