Confronting Oppressive Assessments : How Parents, Educators, and Policymakers Are Rethinking Current Educational Reforms

This book is about doing what’s right for public education in the United States in this age of intensive curriculum convergence, planned instructional standardization, and oppressive accountability procedures. Information is presented about why and how educators, parents, students, community members, and policy-makers have decided to protest against current state and federal educational policies and procedures. The practical experiences of parents, teachers, principals, school superintendents, school board members, and professors are analyzed in chapters of this book. Their first-hand experiences with the various components of the current reform movement are poignantly presented. Through their voices the frustrations with the serious flaws associated with this reform agenda are passionately and logically articulated. They comprehensively explain their personal and professional motivations for organizing and fomenting a rethinking in school reform implementation procedures and they advocate their “smarter approach” to school reforms in our country. The book includes key references that elucidate the need to seriously re-think the directions and strategies of contemporary schooling in order to maintain enlightened creative instruction based on exciting student-centered curriculum experiences and professional educational judgments.

This book is about doing what’s right for public education in the United States in this age of intensive curriculum convergence, planned instructional standardization, and oppressive accountability procedures. Information is presented about why and how educators, parents, students, community members, and policy-makers have decided to protest against current state and federal educational policies and procedures. The practical experiences of parents, teachers, principals, school superintendents, school board members, and professors are analyzed in chapters of this book. Their first-hand experiences with the various components of the current reform movement are poignantly presented. Through their voices the frustrations with the serious flaws associated with this reform agenda are passionately and logically articulated. They comprehensively explain their personal and professional motivations for organizing and fomenting a rethinking in school reform implementation procedures and they advocate their “smarter approach” to school reforms in our country. The book includes key references that elucidate the need to seriously re-think the directions and strategies of contemporary schooling in order to maintain enlightened creative instruction based on exciting student-centered curriculum experiences and professional educational judgments.