Mandel interviewed both new teachers and veteran educators who had mentored first-year teachers in Los Angeles schools to ascertain what kind of information new teachers want during their initial year in the classroom. He discovered that few first-year teachers felt they needed guidance related to state standards and standardized tests. New…

A teacher of Limited English Proficient elementary students in California describes how she put her students through daily timed read-aloud drills to boost their scores on a benchmark assessment of reading rate that her school district required. Corn briefly reviews the rationale behind measuring reading rate as an indicator of fluency. The reason…