On one side, pure horror at catastrophe, the work of human beings or nature alone; on the other side, speechlessness, an apathy of powerlessness. Lured by the media, educators become spectators of multiple tragedies, distanced, unable to grasp others' pain. How do they deal with the crumbling of the taken-for-granted, of the reliable and…

High-stakes testing in New York City (NYC) schools has produced a culture of high-stakes teaching. The latter concept emphasizes both the importance of good teachers to the performance of urban students and the threat to keeping good teachers in NYC schools due to measures such as scripted lessons and mandated curriculum. This essay draws upon…

Dr. Arthur Wise has had a long and distinguished career working for teacher quality and professionalism, school finance reform, and advancement of educational research. As the president of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, he directed that organization's development of performance-based standards and assessments and has…

By looking at teacher collaborative structures in an urban public elementary school, this article demonstrates how, in the face of top-down school decisions under the pressures of high-stakes testing and assessment-driven curriculum, teachers can find the power and freedom for creative and effective pedagogy to flourish. We describe how teachers…