The pressure is on at schools across America. In recent years, reform efforts 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 judged almost solely on the bottom line: test scores. To see if this world is producing better students, Linda Perlstein immersed herself in a suburban Maryland elementary school, providing the first detailed view of how new education policies are modified by human realities.. The school, once deemed a failure, is now held up as an example of reform done right. Nine-year-olds meditate before exams and kindergartners write paragraphs. Teachers attempt to address diverse needs but feel compelled to focus on topics that will be tested at the expense of those that won't. Perlstein explores the rewards and costs of that transformation, through the experiences of the people who lived it.--From publisher description.