VOLUME 26, ISSUE 3 — SPRING 2012
The entire spring issue of Rethinking Schools is accessible here, free of charge.
If you aren’t already a member of Rethinking Schools, we hope the exciting and thought-provoking articles in this issue will inspire you to join.
 

Every day, teachers are being pressured to compete with each other and push their students over the testing precipice, all in the name of accountability—a word that has become corporate-speak for test, test, test. On a very different trajectory, Rethinking Schools has assembled two new books that focus on what teachers are really accountable for: the learning, empowerment, and well-being of their students. This issue of the magazine highlights five new articles from those books. 

RETHINKING ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

A Message from a Black Mom to Her Son
By Dyan Watson
An African American mother and teacher educator uses examples from her own childhood to describe how she hopes her child will be treated by teachers, and what she fears. 

Writing for Justice • Persuasion from the Inside Out
By Mark Hansen
An elementary school teacher takes us inside his classroom to see how he builds on his students’ lives and passions to help them create persuasive essays. 

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PENCILS DOWN! 
Rethinking Standardized Testing and Accountability in Public Schools

About Those Tests I Gave You • An Open Letter to My Students
By Ruth Ann Dandrea
A middle school language arts teacher apologizes to her students for the state’s narrow and deceptive standardized test.

Testing Our Limits
By Melissa Bollow Tempel
First graders, three at a time, use classroom computers to take standardized tests. Their teacher explains the impact on the students and herself. 

Playing Smart  • Resisting the Script
By Wayne Au
Scripted curriculum de-skills teachers and rewards students for passivity, not critical thinking. A teacher educator urges teachers to organize and fight back

There is a lot more inside this issue.