"This book offers an extensive reading of the controversies surrounding educational testing. It focuses attention on the challenges to standardized testing, the emergence of performance-based and outcome-based education, and the eventual decline of these reform efforts. What makes the book unique is attention to the rhetoric of educational reform, the way these reforms were talked about, proposed and challenged. The analysis covers discussions of educational testing occurring in psychometric literatures, political arenas, popular press accounts, and professional educational forums." "Readers interested in educational testing, educational policy or practice will find this book offers a valuable perspective on the powerful effect of rhetoric on our conception of education and its evaluation."--Jacket.