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.

• 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

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.