Tom over at Anti-Hero pointed me towards a new book by John Taylor Gatto called The Underground History of American Education. Here's an overview of John and you can read a review of the book by Chris Acheson over at SlashDot:

"John Taylor Gatto is a former New York City school teacher. During his 30-year career, he has taught at 5 different public schools, has had his teaching license suspended twice for insubordination, and was once covertly terminated while on medical leave. He has also won the New York City Teacher of the Year award three times and the New York State Teacher of the Year award once during the final year of his career. The whole time he has been an outspoken critic of the school system. Nine years after leaving his career, he published The Underground History of American Education, in which he puts forth his insider's vision of what is wrong with American schooling. His verdict is not what you'd expect: the school system cannot be fixed, Gatto asserts, because it has been designed not to educate."

Update:
Anti-Hero has a link where you can download the full text of the book.