Morris Gandy's son was a problem student throughout elementary school, playing hooky and acting up. A few days after he began sixth grade in 2002 at Gillespie Middle School in Philadelphia, he was suspended. Gandy, a single parent, beseeched the principal, "What can you do for a problem child?" He got no help.

Then a neighbor told him about Community Education Partners (CEP), an alternative school for kids like his son. So Gandy enrolled the boy, expecting that teachers there would know how to handle him. Instead, the situation went from bad to worse. "The teacher said my son shot him in the head with a rubber band," Gandy said. "I said, 'What are you going to do about it? This is supposed to be a school for troubled kids.'" His son told Gandy that all they did was watch movies. He went truant. "They are supposed to be the experts on the kids outside the box. They are supposed to get them back inside the box," Gandy said. "They couldn't hold his interest."

Morris Gandy is what you'd call a dissatisfied CEP customer. CEP, however, continues to prosper. Founded ten years ago in Houston, the company entered the private-school market at a time when Texas was a roiling caldron of Republican politics and Enron-style corporate dealing--and a laboratory for education reform. George W. Bush was governor, the mantra was accountability for public schools and the tools were high-stakes testing and privatization. What emerged from the mix were the so-called Texas Miracle, which boosted student achievement; Rod Paige as President Bush's Education Secretary; and ultimately Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, authored by Texas education player Sandy Kress.

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