This review examines four books that may offer some insight into what the discussion about educational policy, reform, and performance may look like after the era of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Collectively, "The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling" by Jal Mehta, "Too Many Children Left Behind: The US Achievement Gap in Comparative Perspective" by Bruce Bradbury and colleagues, "Despite the Best Intentions: How Racial Inequality Thrives in Good Schools" by Amanda E. Lewis and John B. Diamond; and "Toxic Schools: High-Poverty Education in New York and Amsterdam" by Bowen Paulle show that concerns with school accountability are now embedded in broader discussions about the importance of investing in children, families, and schools and how the internal dynamics of schools either support or frustrate those investments. We hope that these works represent a trend toward thinking that is less a historical and reductionist and more empirically grounded than some of the thinking driving educational reforms when No Child Left Behind was passed. [This paper was published in "Social Service Review" v90 n3 Sep 2016.]