This study is a critical discourse analysis of the New Jersey Opt-Out Movement. In 2015, and in response to the increasing standardization of US public school instruction, and over-use of high-stakes testing, NJ parents began to refuse to allow their children to take a key end-of-the year exam, the PARCC. We employ the concepts of master and…

As the adoption and execution of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have steadily increased, the debate community is presented with an opportunity to be more forward thinking and sustainable through the translation to curriculum planning and next-generation assessment as a movement towards Performance-Based Assessments. This paper focuses on…

Developing instructional capacity in schools is a central challenge of the Common Core movement. Most conceptualizations of capacity building focus on infusing externally generated professional development into schools. In this article, we explore the professional resources that reside inside schools that might be utilized to develop instructional…

Given the shift to Common Core, educational leaders are challenged to see new directions in teaching and learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the instructional practices which may be related to the effectiveness of a performance-based system (PBS) and their impact on student achievement, as part of a thematic set of dissertations…

Efforts to privatize education, eliminate teachers' unions, reduce spending on public education, and quantify student performance have demoralized teachers in the USA, and educators struggle to keep up with the many changes while still effectively teaching and caring for their students. Within these reforms, however, there is support for history…

In the United States, as public demands for quality teachers have escalated, there has been a corresponding increase in national policy efforts to tie the standards of student success to teacher preparation, licensing, and evaluation. This conceptual paper examines how national authorities used specific policy tools to usurp the state's…

This article provides an analysis of the rise of 'scientific management' and 'social efficiency' theories in the early 1900s, traces their impact on the structure and administration of education systems, and critically analyses their contribution to the emergence of a new orthodoxy--outcomes-based education (OBE) approaches to school curriculum…

In this powerful collection of personal accounts, successful and respected teachers from across the country reveal how recent education policies have played out in their schools and classrooms in negative and counterproductive ways, and offer teacher-led alternatives for providing equitable, engaging, and empowering education. Framed by critical…