Richard F. Elmore – författare

State education departments and school districts face an important challenge in implementing a new law that requires disadvantaged students to be held to the same standards as other students. The new requirements come from provisions of the 1994 reauthorization of Title I, the largest federal effort in precollegiate education, which provides aid to "level the field" for disadvantaged students. Testing, Teaching, and Learning is written to help states and school districts comply with the new law, offering guidance for designing and implementing assessment and accountability systems. This book examines standards-based education reform and reviews the research on student assessment, focusing on the needs of disadvantaged students covered by Title I. With examples of states and districts that have track records in new systems, the committee develops a practical "decision framework" for education officials. The book explores how best to design assessment and accountability systems that support high levels of student learning and to work toward continuous improvement.Testing, Teaching, and Learning will be an important tool for all involved in educating disadvantaged studentsa "state and local administrators and classroom teachers.

By melding policy analysis and up-close observation, the authorsilluminate the really hard issues in improving instruction. Thisbook will shape educational research and reform for many years tocome. ?David Tyack, Vida Jacks Professor of Education and History,Stanford University

Now more than ever, policymakers face a number of difficult and technical questions in the design and implementation of new accountability approaches. This book gathers the emerging knowledge and lessons learned offered by leading scholars in the field to provide an invaluable resource for policymakers, educators, and anyone interested in the pressing issue of accountability and public schools.

Restructuring Schools provides administrators, state policymakers, teachers, and other educators with an understanding of what can and cannot be achieved through particular restructuring efforts and of the role they can play as individuals to make such efforts succeed.