"Barry M. Franklin's history of low-achieving, troubled, innocent children is sometimes chilling. For all their ostensible attempts to help children, America's public schools have frequently clipped the wings of youth. With a poet's eye but historian's sensibility, Franklin deftly recovers missing pages of the past. He provides the reader with valuable historical perspective on current policy debates on at-risk children." — From the Foreword by William J. Reese