No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top are Federal educational policies that have evoked criticism from teachers and administrators. Both policies extended the federal government’s reach into local education by tying federal funds to a school’s student growth and teacher effectiveness. With an increasing emphasis on economic mechanisms such as choice and competition, teachers’ effectiveness is now determined by standardized and quantifiable measurements. These policies have created a data driven and high stakes accountability culture within each school. Teachers are finding themselves in a new balancing act of recording quantifiable yearly progress for all students while trying to work against environmental factors that are out of their control. The rising trend to utilize a “no zero” homework policy under these new pressures merits investigation into its role within teacher culture and these current tensions. The recent call for anthropology to re-enter the classroom as a cultural site allows the researcher to provide context to the fluid relationships that often lead to the reproduction of or resistance against dominant ideology. Using the case study method, this ethnography employs the critical theory framework to examine policy impact on teacher culture and gain an understanding for how and why trends such as the “no zero” homework become a part of school policy. By looking at a “school of choice” and a traditional “feeder middle school,” this thesis gives context to how the local trends illuminate larger cultural shifts
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-3935 |
| Date | 01 January 2013 |
| Creators | Bolger, Mary |
| Publisher | University of Central Florida |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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