The Testing and Learning Revolution

The Future of Assessment in Education
By Edmund W. Gordon and Kavitha Rajagopalan
5^th November 2015
$32 | £22 | Paperback | 9781137519955

Over the past few decades, assessment has been hailed as the tool which will help fix the American education system. But as ever-more elaborate systems of standardized testing have emerged, it is clear that they have not done the job, and are still failing to prepare American students for success in a complex, global marketplace.

In The Testing and Learning Revolution, Edmund Gordon and Kavitha Rajagopalan lay out their vision: when assessment focuses on improving teaching and learning rather than measuring only what students have learned, we can achieve excellence in education for all students in America. The authors argue that the challenge for the American education system is not to determine whether or even by how much students have failed to achieve, but to enable them to learn and develop as fully as they are able so they can navigate the world around them, live fuller lives, and contribute as fully as they can to society.

Between 2011 and 2013, Gordon chaired an interdisciplinary commission of scholars and thinkers who connected transformative research and ideas on learning, teaching, measurement, the nature of tests, intelligence, capability, technology, and policy. The Testing and Learning Revolution unites the commission's work with Gordon’s decades of experience in education and psychology and Rajagopalan’s expertise in policy and diversity. Together they show how to create assessments that are integrated into education, serve the information needs of teachers and students, and help enable learners to flourish.

"Gordon and Rajagopalan offer a cogent and compelling analysis of educational testing today and tomorrow. They show how over-emphasis on accountability has distorted teaching and learning, how educational goals are changing, and how emergent technologies can enable fundamentally different kinds of assessments to truly support the development of all students to their fullest potential. Once in a great while, a book is written that simply must be read. This is such a book."
–Edward Haertel, Jacks Family Professor Emeritus of Education, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, USA

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About the Authors

Edmund W. Gordon is John M. Musser Professor of Psychology, Emeritus at Yale University, USA; Richard March Hoe Professor, Emeritus of Psychology and Education, at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA; and Director Emeritus of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME) at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA.

Kavitha Rajagopalan has worked with Dr. Gordon for six years, supporting him in the preparation of a wide range of publications. She is a writer and policy analyst, specializing in global migration and social cohesion in diverse societies.

For more information or to get in touch with the author please contact:
Rebecca Krahenbuhl, rebecca.krahenbuhl@palgrave.com, +44 0207 014 6634