Ghosts of No Child Left Behind

Joanne M. Carris is a literacy specialist and educational consultant in New York City. As an educator for over fifteen years, she has worked in alternative high schools, including juvenile detention center schools. In public schools, she has specialized in literacy development with adolescents who are emerging readers. Carris has a PhD in Urban Education from the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center, a MA in Bilingual Special Education from the Bank Street College of Education, and a MA in Philosophy of Education from the CUNY Graduate Center.

«Joanne Carris's new book, 'The Ghosts of No Child Left Behind', is a strikingly important and well-crafted guide to understanding and addressing a critical problem in American education and society - non-reading adolescents in the light of punitive public policy embodied in NCLB and its successors. How can an allegedly socially just democratic society ignore the standing of these children - many of them of color - many of them facing leaving school without graduating and suffering the consequences? Dr. Carris shines a bright light on the issue and asks us if we can tolerate a problem - not the students but our policies - that virtually guarantees poor health, a need for future public economic support, low lifetime earnings, underemployment, and, for far too many, incarceration. This is the book that helps us understand that moving to help these children is not only a moral obligation and within our power, but is also cost effective in the face of the consequences of neglect. It should be for every educator who cares and, just as importantly, for every thinking voter and policy maker.» (Nicholas M. Michelli, Presidential Professor The Graduate Center The City University of New York)