Standards And Schooling In The United States: An Encyclopedia (3 Volumes)

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Summary: The Most Comprehensive Discussion of Educational Standards
Review: This is encyclopedia is unparralleled in the fifty four essays it brings together regarding the debate over the viability and direction of educational standards and testing in the United States. With essays from notable authors such as Joe Kincheloe, Danny Weil, Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson of Rethinking Schools, Monty Neill of FAIRTEST and a host of academicians and teachers laboring with the lives of students, parents, and commmunities, this book is by far the most comprehensive and unique book of its kind. With media-driven soundbites commanding the debate Americans are exposed to regarding standards and education, this book promises to shed both heat and light on the issue of how we test children and why by including topics of social justice, racism, social class, gender discrimination, culture, lingustics, community movements and organizational attempts at shifting assessment paradigms, authentic assessment and authentic teaching, psycholgocial critiques of antiquated notions of knowing and what it means to be intelligent, as well as re-defining the role of education as that of a "journey to become human". By tying the issues to changes in neo-liberalism, the encyclopedia achieves its goal of seating the issue of education and standards within history and shows the relationship of the current standards debate to the particular phase of capitalism we are witnessing today. A masterpiece and an important addition to all-too often shallow journalistic coverages of educational purpose and assessment. This book is a must read for anyone interested in public policy, educational psychology, cultural discrimination in testing, racism and high stakes testing, efforts at organizing resistance to current standards and proposals for more comprehensive human efforts at educational reform, and especially for teachers of all grades laboring with the lives of our future citizens in an atmosphere of commodification and de-skilling of the teaching profession. Thank you for this book and continue your efforts.