Friday, June 21, 2013

No Child Left Alive now available in paperback

The book that got me fired, No Child Left Alive, is available in paperback for the first time as of this morning.

At the moment, it is only available at its CreateSpace website, but in a short time, it will be available at Amazon.com and then shortly after that on other internet sites, including Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million.

I have placed the first order for books for Joplin and area retail outlets and they should be available by the end of the month or the beginning of July.

The following description of the book comes from the website:

If the shooter doesn't get them, the system will. That proved to be the case for author Randy Turner, as the veteran teacher was fired from his teaching job in Joplin, Missouri, for writing this book. No Child Left Alive tells the story of one year at dysfunctional Franklin Heights High School, where the teachers battle administrators seeking to pad their resumes at the expense of the students' education and find themselves at the mercy of a criminal element that has been lured back into the school in a misguided effort to increase graduation rates.

At the center of the storm is Assistant Superintendent Abigail Saucier, who after being passed over for the top job after the death of the former superintendent (and Abigail's lover) is determined to make Franklin Heights a model of innovation through a series of new programs that confound and frustrate the faculty. Abigail also has to deal with a deadbeat husband, a promiscuous daughter, and a growing attraction to her daughter's boyfriend, drug-dealing gang leader Rico Salazar.

Opposing Abigail's plans to remake education at Franklin Heights is Teacher of the Year Walter Tollivar, who has his own problems- a crippling case of claustrophobia, and an attraction to a younger teacher, who five years earlier had been one of his students, and who is now so afraid of her own students that she has begun carrying a gun.

As the teachers battle to hold on to their sanity, a bullied student plans a revenge designed to make everyone forget Columbine.

No Child Left Alive is a satirical, yet frightening, view of education in Obama's America- a wasteland where test scores and statistics are everything, and teachers are cannon fodder for glory-hungry administrators and clueless politicians.



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow!!!! Fired for writing the book? Are you sure it wasn't for how you made the book available to students? Don't believe there is any Joplin R-8 policy about writing a book.

Randy said...

I suggest you do a little research. The administration was unable to find any students who had read the book and instead said I had "dangled" it in front of them. So, yes, it was the content of the book that got me fired, but I have a feeling nothing I write will have any effect on your opinion anyway.

Anonymous said...

"Dangled" from the same administration that "dangled" a world of pornography, video games, social media and bullying, and violence in front of our kids with their technology. How do they stand themselves?

I wish they'd come up with some data to show what they're doing has been of some benefit to our kids. I doubt they can or they would have by now. in the meantime, they'll keep pointing fingers to distract people. We'll remember on voting day, and they better have plenty of money for all of those projects, because we're not giving up any more dollars to be wasted.

Anonymous said...

mr turner, two of my children were your students and always had much praise for you, sadly I have to say that I find it a blessing the HS was blown away and we lost everything, because we moved from Joplin and my children then attended a not so ******up school. I wish you the best of luck and just remember god may close a door but he also opens windows.