This book overturns the typical conception of standards, empowering educators by providing concrete examples of how top-down models of assessment can be embraced and used in ways that are consistent with critical pedagogies. Although standards, as broad frameworks for setting learning targets, are not necessarily problematic, when they are…

This book examines the changes in educational policy in the U.S. and Britain over the last twenty-five years. The author contends that education in the States and Britain has been significantly transformed, through efforts to create curricular standards, increased emphasis on accountability measured by standardized tests, and efforts to introduce…

Few matters induce more dialogue among foreign language among educators than the problem of students' transition between levels of language study. Secondary school teachers worry about how best to integrate a diversely prepared freshman population into their curriculum. The aim of this edited volume is to assemble the theory, research, and vision…