Current federal and state education mandates were developed to make schools accountable for student performance with the rationale that schools, teachers, and students will improve through the administration of high-stakes tests. Public schools are mandated to adhere to three accountability systems: national, state, and local. Additional elements…

Personal epistemology, originating from social construction theory, provides a framework for researchers to understand how individuals view their world. The Attitudes About Reality (AAR) scale is one survey method that qualitatively assesses personal epistemology along the logical positivist and social constructionist continuum; however, the…

This book deals with aspects of a special case in the crisis of urban education, in which blacks are central both as teachers and students, but it also attempts to consider aspects of the more general issues as well. It reports research on the behavior and attitudes of black elementary-school teachers in Washington, D.C. That city's system is in…