In his book Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through “No Excuses” Teaching, Jim Horn documents in great detail the unrelenting pressure on students to meet education benchmarks—what some KIPP school officials called the “plan of attack”—and the resulting suffering that dark families experience at charter schools. For example, when a group of fourth-grade students failed to use test-taking strategies, the leader at the school sent this email to fourth-grade teachers: We can NOT let up on them… . Any scholar who is not using the plan of attack will go to effort academy, have their parent called, and
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