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The book by Brill, who is best known in education circles for exposing New York City's "rubber rooms," is not a Race to the Top exposé, but is part history lesson, part character study, part political gossip column, and part policy analysis.

A school district that is a finalist for the soon-to-be announced $1 million 2011 Broad Prize for Urban Education is embarking on a public relations effort - funded with U.S. government and Gates Foundation money - to end public opposition to its school reform program, which includes a slew of new standardized tests. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District in North Carolina is using Race to the Top money - which wasn't intended to fund public relations efforts - and $200,000 in Gates Foundation money for the campaign.

Educational reforms enacted through federal policies are directly impacting the voice of children, teachers, and teacher educators. The recently introduced bi partisan bill "Growing Excellent Achievement Training Academies for Teachers and Principals Act" frames a plan for state accreditation for teacher training academies based on student achievement. The newly introduced Race to the Top (RTT) competition, focused on early childhood, includes motivating states to receive some of the $500 million allotted to create ratings systems to score early childhood programs, write standards and related standardized tests, and expectations of what an early childhood teachers should know. Both the proposed bill and RTT competition are positioned to regulate with market driven ideology, reinforcing and reproducing social injustice and undermining democratic ideals.