Introduction: Critical pedagogy--revitalizing and democratizing teacher education

Since President George W. Bush signed into law the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001, better known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), high-stakes testing has been officially embraced and positioned to be the panacea of academic under achievement in public schools in the United States. The Act engenders a hitherto unheard of transfer of power to federal and state governments, granting them the rights to largely determine the goals and outcomes of these educational institutions. It is ironic, to say the least, that this social movement has emanated from a political party that in the not so distant past called for dismantling the federal Department of Education altogether. As a direct result of this new conservative agenda, school administrators, teachers, communities, and parents are stripped of any substantive decision-making power in the nation's public scchools.