Tag Archives: Standardized Testing

What Great Teachers Do Differently: 14 Things That Matter Most (Paperback)

What Great Teachers Do Differently: 14 Things That Matter Most

This book describes the beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and interactions that form the fabric of life in our best classrooms and schools. It focuses on the specific things that great teachers do … that others do not. It answers these essential questions: – Is it high expectations for students that matter? – How do great teachers respond when students misbehave? – Do great teachers filter differently than their peers? – How do the best teachers approach standardized testing?

About the Author

One of the nation’s leading authorities on motivation, teacher leadership, and principal effectiveness, Todd Whitaker is a former middle and high school teacher and principal, now a professor at Indiana State University.

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The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (Hardcover)

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

From Booklist

*Starred Review* As an education historian and former assistant secretary of education, Ravitch has witnessed the trends in public education over the past 40 years and has herself swung from public-school advocate to market-driven accountability and choice supporter back to public-school advocate. With passion and insight, she analyzes research and draws on interviews with educators, philanthropists, and business executives to question the current direction of reform of public education. In the mid-1990s, the movement to boost educational standards failed on political concerns; next came the emphasis on accountability with its reliance on standardized testing. Now educators are worried that the No Child Left Behind mandate that all students meet proficiency standards by 2014 will result in the dismantling of public schools across the nation. Ravitch analyzes the impact of choice on public schools, attempts to quantify quality teaching, and describes the da (more…)