Our Hero

For those of you who attended the International Reading Association Conference in Chicago on May 2 and 3, 2006 and expected to see delightful author/illustrator Patricia Polacco, you may have found that she was not in attendance. She was certainly invited, so where was she? Well it seems as if the firm of SRA/McGraw Hill Company (who manufactures, prints, and profits from the sale of the tests created in association with the No Child Left Behind Mandate) was sponsoring the IRA program. More importantly, they were telling Polacco that her speech had to be "upbeat, non-controversial, and non-political". Polacco has long been critical of No Child Left Behind since it first appeared and when she informed SRA/McGraw Hill that she would not change the content of her speeches they cancelled all her appearances within the hour. Read the full story in her own words at the site below.