The book explores the historical failure of testing and grading; the theoretical and philosophical arguments against testing and grading; the negative influence of tests and grades on social justice, race, class, and gender; and the role that they play in perpetuating a deficit perspective of children.

Joe Bower was a teacher in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. He spent ten years teaching grade eight language arts and science in a middle school, and then served as a special education teacher in a children’s psychiatric assessment unit. View his work at www.joebower.org and @joe_bower. P. L. Thomas, Professor of Education (Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina), taught high school English in rural South Carolina before moving to teacher education. He is currently a column editor for (National Council of Teachers of English) and series editor for Critical Literacy Teaching Series: Challenging Authors and Genres. Follow his work at https://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/ and @plthomasEdD.

Contents: Rick Wormeli: An Unexamined Pedagogy Harms – Lisa Guisbond/Monty Neill/Bob Schaeffer: NCLB’s Lost Decade for Educational Progress: What Can We Learn from This Policy Failure? – Fernando F. Padró/ Michael F. Hawke/Laurie M. Hawke: Assessment and Quality: Policy-Steering and the Making of a Deus ex Machina – Anthony Cody: Technocratic Groupthink Inflates the Testing Bubble – Lawrence Baines/Rhonda Goolsby-Smith: America’s Obsessive-Assessment Disorder – Julie A. Gorlewski/David A. Gorlewski: Solidarity and Critical Dialogue: Interrupting the Degradation of Teacher Preparation – Morna McDermott: Feeding the World = Reading the World: Let Them Eat Tests – Richard Mora: Bubble in B for Boredom – Brian R. Beabout/Andre M. Perry: Reconciling Student Outcomes and Community Self-Reliance in Modern School Reform Contexts – David L. Bolton/John M. Elmore: The Role of Assessment in Empowering/Disempowering Students in the Critical Pedagogy Classroom – Christian Z. Goering: «How Long Does This Have to Be?»: Confronting the Standardization of Writing Instruction with Teachers in National Writing Project Invitational Summer Institutes – Joe Bower: Telling Time with a Broken Clock: Moving Beyond Standardized Testing – John L. Hoben: The Grading Mousetrap: Narcissism, Abjection, and the Politics of Self-Harm – Arnold Dodge/Ruth Powers Silverberg/Katie Zahedi: Leadership Denied: Principal as Compliance Officer – Hadley J. Ferguson: Journey into Ungrading – Jennifer Magee/Mark Dziedzic: An Oath to Stop Degrading Students: A Story of De-grading an Elementary Classroom – P. L. Thomas: De-grading Writing Instruction: Closing the «Considerable Gap» – Brian Rhode: One Week, Many Thoughts – Lisa William-White: Striving Toward Authentic Teaching for Social Justice: Additional Considerations – P. L. Thomas: Yes, to Be Clear, I Am Anti-testing, Anti-grading.