That’s the title of an excellent new article by Kristina Rizga in Mother Jones.
Rizga spent a year embedded at Mission High School in San Francisco and got to know some of the students and teachers well.
According to the federal government, Mission High School is a “failing” school.
Rizga got there expecting to see “noisy classrooms, hallway fights, and disgruntled staff. Instead I found a welcoming place that many students and staff called “family.” After a few weeks of talking to students, I failed to find a single one who didn’t like the school, and most of the parents I met were happy too. Mission’s student and parent satisfaction surveys rank among the highest in San Francisco.”
She found a “failing” school where the majority of the 925 students are Latino or African-American or Asian-American, a school where 72% of the students are poor. She also discovered that 84% of the graduating class went on to college, higher than the district average.
But it is a failing school!
Of course, the feds would love to close the school and do a “turnaround.” But the principal, relatively new to his job, the teachers, and the students don’t want to lose their job.
If you need convincing that NCLB is a disaster for our schools, and that the “turnaround” demands of Race to the Top are equally harmful, you will enjoy this article.
It is the wisest in-depth journalism that I have seen on education issues in recent memory.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’ll just copy and paste my comment from the Mother Jones web site:
I am very disappointed that she [Rizga] had such an uncritical take on Michelle Rhee, merely describing her as a maverick. She [Rhee] was and is a destructive pro corporate type of maverick who is intent on destroying the traditional public schools as well as teacher unions. She’s the darling of the media. Waiting for Superman was a heavy handed propaganda screed against unions and traditional public schools, hardly unbiased. I recommend Diane Ravitch’s blog (https://dianeravitch.net/) to find out what is really going on in education besides the media love frenzy over Rhee, Gates and charter schools.
Michelle Rhee is hardly a maverick. She is the face of the status quo, the status quo enforced by federal policy and backed by the billionaires. If it were up to her, she would fire the principal and teachers in Mission High School and hand the building over to charter chains.
Regarding Rizga’s comment on Rhee, I’ve griped a bit to her before (Rizga, not Rhee) about being too gentle in her coverage with people who warranted a bright spotlight and harsh treatment. But I think her coverage of Mission High is really a breakthrough — for education journalism — and it makes me consider that different people bring different qualities to the table and they can still have value. Rizga isn’t going to do a hard-hitting expose of atrocities like Michelle Rhee, but she has done a great piece of work in her own comfort zone. (I just wish someone in the press would be a little, or a lot, more hard-hitting.)
You will get your wish when my next book is published
Let’s take her up on her request.
Kristina Rizga covers education for Mother Jones. She’d love to hear your ideas on what she should be covering in schools. Email her at kristina@rizga.com. You can also follow her on Twitter.
I loved her article. We needed to hear about Mission High and students like Maria. We needed to hear about a principal like Eric Gutherz and teachers like Amades Velez and Robert Roth. This was a piece of writing focused on a story worth telling; Michelle Rhee does not deserve such attention.