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HIGH POINT — In a womblike room at Theatre Art Galleries, you think you’re looking at a funky circus.

Reds, yellows, greens and blues jump from the canvas. Horses, bulls, rabbits and pigs spring from the space, too. But look closer, and you’ll see the faces of young students twisted in disgust, anger and pain.

At first, it might creep you out. But look at the names of the paintings and the egglike sculptures the size of an adult thumb: “Retest,’’ “Annual Yearly Progress,’’ “No Child Left Behind,’’ “It’s All Over But The Yelling’’ and “All The King’s Horses.’’

Something’s going on. And that something is Sally Jacobs’ provocative look at public education. She doesn’t believe it works.

She comes at it as a former middle school teacher in textile-depressed North Carolina. For three years, from 2004 to 2007, she taught in Cleveland County in the only middle school in Lawndale, population 631.

Like many towns across North Carolina, the textile industry built Lawndale. But like many towns, those textile mills vanished and left behind a work force where one in five make less than $11,000 a year.

That’s the dollars-and-cents definition of poverty. And that was the world of Sally Jacobs. She captured it on canvas, on panels and in clay — the faces and expressions of the students she saw.

They suffered from, as she calls it, “rural North Carolina’s financial misfortunes — namely the collapse of the textile industry.’’

In her paintings, they are falling, and a safety net doesn’t exist.

I wanted to talk to Jacobs about her artwork. But she’s unhooked herself from her phone and her computer as she begins her next career as a new mother.

So, I caught up with Mark Brown. He knows a thing — or two or three — about art. He used to run the Center for Creative Arts in Greensboro. He’s now the executive director of Theatre Art Galleries, better known as TAG.

He selected Jacobs’ exhibit, “180 Students 180 Days,’’ to appear in TAG’s second-floor exhibit hall after finding her work in a pile of CDs on his desk. When he saw it, he had one word: “Wow.’’

Jacobs, born in 1968 and educated in art in Cincinnati, Cullowhee and Florence, Italy, uses her exhibit to question how we as a country are preparing our next generation for new opportunities in the 21st century.

In Jacobs’ view, she’d give us an F.

“These paintings are an indictment of public education,’’ Brown says. “Do you see kids learning? They’re out of control, at the risk of everyone else. It’s all about me. It’s not about us.’’

In 2001, President Bush rolled out a big education initiative that aimed to improve public education by creating financial incentives, spending billions and setting measurable goals.

Since then, Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” has been labeled “No Child Left Untested.” It’s been criticized for fostering a teach-to-the-test approach that treats students like livestock shuttled in and out of a chute.

That explains the rabbits, horses, bulls and pigs you see in Jacobs’ work.

It also explains the frantic look you see on the kids’ faces, the faces of Lawndale, the faces of our future.

Today, in our culture of sound bites, everyone is talking about ways to improve public education. But spend some time in TAG’s second-floor gallery and look at something like “All The King’s Horses.’’ Then, you understand.

Those faces of public education are a scary sight. And that’s gotta change.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com