From this pile of stolen parts they assembled an educational jalopy. It featured an engine of old-fashioned hard work (longer school days, shorter summer vacations, uniforms, a clear system of punishment and reward), encased in a skin of innovative techniques (times tables would be learned via rapping; kids would be given teachers' home phone numbers for homework questions). On the wall, Feinberg and Levin pasted a slogan pilfered from a renowned Los Angeles teacher named Rafe Esquith—“Work Hard, Be Nice”—and pointed their jalopy toward a distant goal: to do whatever it took to get the
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