Test Driven: High-Stakes Accountability in Elementary Schools

“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, examining how they differ in 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
• Provides teacher and principal perspectives on factors that influence how practitioners make sense of, mediate, and construct school policy.

Linda Valli is the inaugural Jeffrey and David Mullan Professor in Teacher Education Professional Development at the University of Maryland. Robert G. Croninger is Associate Professor at the University of Maryland. Marilyn J. Chambliss is Associate Professor at the University of Maryland. Anna O. Graeber is Associate Professor Emerita at the University of Maryland. Daria Buese is Assistant Professor at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland.