This book documents the "brave new world" of teacher, administrator, school, and student accountability that has swept across the United States in recent years. Its particular vantage point is the perspective of dozens of new teachers trying to make their way through their first months and years working in schools in the New York City metropolitan area. The issues they grapple with are not, however, unique to this context, but common problems found today in urban, suburban, and rural schools across the United States. The stories in this book offer a compelling portrait of these teachers' encounters with the new culture of accountability and the strategies they develop for coping, even succeeding, within such demanding settings. The book: (1) introduces research on teaching and engages the "big ideas" concerning teacher research, highlighting what we know and where that leads us; (2) offers a rich set of teacher narratives that are organized to widen the angle of vision from biography, to classrooms, schools, and society; and (3) includes questions and activities to encourage discussion and further research about the ideas raised; and addresses the possibilities for best practice and curricular decision making in light of the issues and ideas presented in the book. Following a preface, this book is divided into five parts. Part I, Choosing to Become a Teacher, presents the first chapter of the book: (1) Teaching Is Messy Work: High-Stakes Teaching. Part II, Teaching as an Autobiographical Act, continues with the next chapters: (2) Vocation? Profession? Or Just a Job?; (3) "Having a Life" as a New Teacher; and (4) From Noble Ideals to Everyday Realities. Part III, Encountering Classrooms and Schools, then presents chapters: (5) Lessons, Kids, and Classrooms; (6) Accountability, Autonomy, and Responsibility in the Classroom; (7) Teaching Is Not Just What Happens When You Close the Classroom Door; and (8) The Global Village of the Classroom. Next, Part IV, New Teachers as Decision Makers, offers: (9) The Past Is Never Past; and (10) Teaching as a Political Act. Finally, Part V, Confronting the Age of Accountability, concludes the book with the remaining chapter: (11) Choosing to Make a Difference (K. K. Zumwalt). [This book was written with Karen Kepler Zumwalt and was edited by David Milton Gerwin.]