Andy Hargreaves & Dennis Shirley (2009), The Fourth Way: The inspiring future for educational change, publicado por Corwin SAGE Company, NY, pp. 143. Diane Ravitch (2010), The death and life of the great American school system. How testing and choice are undermining education, publicado por Basic Books, California. Robin Alexander et al.  (2010), Children, their worlds, their education. Final report and recommendations of the Cambridge primary review, publicado por Routledge, London. Andy Hargreaves & Michael Fullan (2012), Professional capital. Transforming teaching in every school, publicado por Routledge.Estos cuatro libros discuten sobre el impacto de políticas basadas en mecanismos de privatización desregulada, estandarización excesiva, sobre-examinación censal y accountability externa de altas consecuencias (PEEA) implementados durante los últimos 20 años especialmente en el Reino Unido y EEUU. Como remarca especialmente Alexander (2010) o Ravitch (2010), estos cuatro libros basan sus argumentos en robusta evidencia científica, resultado de centenares de investigaciones que han estudiado los efectos de la adopción de estas políticas y no en ideologías, modas, creencias o discursos. Estas cuatro publicaciones, separadamente o en conjunto, son de enorme actualidad para Chile, país que exhibe un fuerte dinamismo en el diseño, discusión e implementación de reformas educacionales a todo nivel del sistema escolar y sus actores (profesores, directores, colegios, financiamiento, regulaciones y evaluación).http://dx.doi.org/10.7764/PEL.50.2.2013.10Andy Hargreaves & Dennis Shirley (2009), The Fourth Way: The inspiring future for wducational change, published by Corwin SAGE Company, NY, pp. 143. Diane Ravitch (2010), The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education, published by Basic Books, California. Robin Alexander et al.  (2010), Children, their world, their education: Final report and recommendations of the Cambridge primary review, published by Routledge, London. Andy Hargreaves & Michael Fullan (2012), Professional capital. Transforming teaching in every school, published by Routledge.These four books discuss the impact of policies based on mechanisms of deregulated privatisation, excessive standardisation, overuse of census-based testing and high-stakes external accountability (abbreviated here as PSTA) that have been implemented over the past 20 years, especially in the UK and U.S. As stated particularly by Alexander (2010) and Ravitch (2010), these four books base their arguments on robust scientific evidence, the result of hundreds of investigations that have studied the effects of adoption of these policies rather than ideologies, fads, beliefs or discourses. These four publications, separately or together, are enormously topical for Chile, a country that is showing marked activity in the design, debate and implementation of educational reforms at all levels of the school system and its actors (teachers, school heads, schools, financing, regulations and assessment).http://dx.doi.org/10.7764/PEL.50.2.2013.10