READ 180, a special class to help students read better, is just one of many boxed reading intervention programs popping up all over the United States and being used by districts to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) at a huge cost to students. The Milwaukee Public School District calls it "a research-based reading intervention program focusing specifically on students determined to be nonproficient." The author has not researched READ 180 enough to evaluate its efficacy, but she states from experience that scripted reading programs, especially direct instruction based programs, do not stimulate higher level thinking or critical thinking skills in students. This article describes how the author tries to reclaim electives for students assigned to READ 180 instead. She shares lessons learned from fighting for electives and the mistakes she made in her efforts to defend the students. She learned that the imposition of a standardized learning program for students leads to attempts to standardize teachers, too--and to repress those who challenge the new system. Now, she sees the need for educators to join together to rethink what they are being told and to focus collectively on fighting policies that are not right for students.