Confronting the educational directives of high-stakes testing and accountability is achievable through inference and implementation of innovative change. Using the lens of learners as inquirers, teacher candidates designed and implemented action research projects to create alternate instructional strategies, management systems, and methods to reach disenfranchised students. The primary investigators challenged their teacher candidates to exercise "inference for innovation"--expanding their potential for critical thinking in a society of transition, and manage "transformational skills"--allowing them to be ongoing change agents. (Contains 1 figure.)