High-Stakes Testing and the Decline of Teaching and Learning

David Hursh is associate professor of Teaching and Curriculum in the Warner Graduate School of Education at the University of Rochester.

In this unusual book, David Hursh combines rich recollections of classroom teaching with trenchant analysis of the "real crisis" in education today-the neoliberal package of high stakes testing, accountability, markets and privatization. The result is a deeply disturbing but compelling and original book that puts democratic education back where it should be—at the center of discussions about schools and schooling.

• Chapter 1 Situating the personal in the politicalChapter 2 Demystifying education: Theorizing practice and practicing theoryChapter 3 Years of struggle and hopeChapter 4 Conflicting visions of schooling and teaching: The historical and political contextChapter 5 The rise of high-stakes testing at the state and federal levels: New York, Texas and No Child Left BehindChapter 6 Chicago's Renaissance 2010: The reassertion of ruling-class power.Chapter 7 Imagining the future: Alternatives to high-stakes testing and neoliberalism