Test driven: high-stakes accountability in elementary schools

Description

''This important new book is a must-read for anyone who cares about the quality of teaching offered to children, especially those who are most vulnerable.'' --Christine Sleeter, Professor Emerita, California State University Monterey Bay''Provides insights into the behavior and practice of educators negotiating policy, children, and professional community. School leaders, researchers, parents, and policymakers will benefit from reading this volume.'' --William F. Tate IV, Washington University in St. Louis''Offers detailed accounts of the emphasis on standardized testing, deprofessionalization of teachers, and negative consequences for unrealistic expectations -- a story that has emerged in the public press over the past few years, but this work brings the story down to the classroom level.'' --Robert Calfee, Stanford School of Education ''This is a well-documented and persuasive account of the undue negative impact of performance-based reform as embodied in the federal, No Child Left Behind education law….a timely, must-read for every policymaker, administrator, teacher, and advocate.'' --Angela Valenzuela, University of Texas at Austin, author of Subtractive Schooling and Leaving Children Behind''I don't always know [students] by face; I know them by data,'' an elementary curriculum specialist explains ruefully in this broad examination of how No Child Left Behind impacts schools and shapes teaching practice. Capturing the changes teachers are experiencing, especially in the areas of mathematics and reading, the authors compare and contrast three schools with diverse student populations according to school norms and structures, professional roles and responsibilities, curriculum, staff development, and teaching and learning. Including rich observational data and personal accounts from educators, this inside look at school reform analyzes the effects of policies from multiple levels, examining relationships among initiatives at the federal, state, district, and local school levels, focuses on the impact that high-stakes testing policies have on reading and mathematics instruction in 4th and 5th grades, and provides teacher and principal perspectives on factors that influence how practitioners make sense of, mediate, and construct school policy.