I don't always know [students] by face; I know them by data, an elementary curriculum specialist explains ruefully in this broad examination of how No Child Left Behind impacts schools and shapes teaching practice. Capturing the changes teachers are experiencing, especially in the areas of mathematics and reading, the authors compare and contrast three schools with diverse student populations according to school norms and structures, professional roles and responsibilities, curriculum, staff development, and teaching and learning.Including rich observational data and personal accounts from educators, this inside look at school reform analyzes the effects of policies from multiple levels, examining relationships among initiatives at the federal, state, district, and local school levels, focuses on the impact that high-stakes testing policies have on reading and mathematics instruction in 4th and 5th grades, and provides teacher and principal perspectives on factors that influence how practitioners make sense of, mediate, and construct school policy.

Engaging students in worthwhile learning requires more than a knowledge of underlying principles of good teaching. It demands considerable practice as well as images of what good teaching in particular situations and for particular purposes might look like. This volume provides these images. These cases were written from authentic, unrehearsed lessons taught by upper-elementary classroom teachers to diverse groups of real students in intact classrooms. Each lesson contains elements of sound instructional practice from which both preservice and in-service teachers can benefit. Cases are not meant to be ideal, but rather to evoke ways of seeing and thinking about good classroom instruction for all learners. Accompanied by analytic commentaries from experts representing a particular perspective, such as special education and ESOL, these unrehearsed cases are written with the understanding that teaching is complex and multi-dimensional. The cases are drawn from a four-year study of 4th and 5th grade mathematics instruction of culturally diverse classrooms with relatively high rates of students from low-income families.

Engaging students in worthwhile learning requires more than a knowledge of underlying principles of good teaching. It demands considerable practice as well as images of what good teaching in particular situations and for particular purposes might look like. This volume provides these images. These cases were written from authentic, unrehearsed lessons taught by upper-elementary classroom teachers to diverse groups of real students in intact classrooms. Each lesson contains elements of sound instructional practice from which both preservice and in-service teachers can benefit. Cases are not meant to be ideal, but rather to evoke ways of seeing and thinking about good classroom instruction for all learners. Accompanied by analytic commentaries from experts representing a particular perspective, such as special education and ESOL, these unrehearsed cases are written with the understanding that teaching is complex and multi-dimensional. The cases are drawn from a four-year study of 4th and 5th grade mathematics instruction of culturally diverse classrooms with relatively high rates of students from low-income families.

I don't always know [students] by face; I know them by data, an elementary curriculum specialist explains ruefully in this broad examination of how No Child Left Behind impacts schools and shapes teaching practice. Capturing the changes teachers are experiencing, especially in the areas of mathematics and reading, the authors compare and contrast three schools with diverse student populations according to school norms and structures, professional roles and responsibilities, curriculum, staff development, and teaching and learning.Including rich observational data and personal accounts from educators, this inside look at school reform analyzes the effects of policies from multiple levels, examining relationships among initiatives at the federal, state, district, and local school levels, focuses on the impact that high-stakes testing policies have on reading and mathematics instruction in 4th and 5th grades, and provides teacher and principal perspectives on factors that influence how practitioners make sense of, mediate, and construct school policy.