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This paper explores changes to the educational policy-making arena through case study analysis of a Massachusetts law passed in 2012 that limits seniority-based job protections for public K-12 teachers. I use data from interviews with policy stakeholders, observations of public meetings, and policy artifacts to explore struggles over democratic engagement in what unfolded as a highly undemocratic policy development process. Using the policy cycle framework, I explore the ways that political pressure and political discourses shaped the policy development process through various contexts of political struggle. Ultimately, I argue that the case is indicative of what I am calling ‘neo-democratic’ decision-making, in which high-level interest group conflict leads to narrow forms of democratic engagement.

In recent years, a new breed of political organizations has had remarkable influence in American educational policymaking. Proponents of neoliberal reform, these groups have been labeled as Education Reform Advocacy Organizations, or ERAOs. I situate these organizations within the larger network of Intermediary Organizations (IOs). To understand the ways that ERAOs influence the policymaking process, I explore the role of Stand for Children, a national ERAO, in helping to pass neoliberal reform of teacher job security in Massachusetts. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), I explore common frames evident in debate about the organization’s role in the state, and I rely on data from key stakeholder interviews, observations and policy artifacts to characterize competing arguments about the organization’s political motives. I pay particularly close attention to how the organization’s political identity shaped, and was shaped by, its attempts to build an advocacy coalition in the state. Through...

Teacher learning communities are hailed by many as vehicles for reforming and elevating the professional status of teaching. While much research explores teacher community as a venue for measurable gains, our research examines the orientation of practitioner inquiry toward critical debate about effective instruction. Specifically, our study focuses on a group of middle and high school teachers who worked with a nonprofit organization to engage students in urban environmental field investigations. Teachers met regularly as a community with the common goal of teaching urban ecology in an outdoor setting. We collected interview data from members of the teacher community, and we observed teacher interaction during a meeting of the practitioner inquiry group. Interview results indicated that while the nonprofit aimed to support collaborative dialogue and self-critique, participants saw the community mainly as a venue for pursuing short-term goals, such as receiving new resources or socializing with colleagues. Observation data, however, suggested that the community was taking early steps toward building an environment oriented toward critical discussion. Juxtaposing results from our interviews and observations, we discuss the challenges communities face when they seek to develop shared beliefs and deal openly with conflict. Ultimately, we suggest that organizers of collaborative learning environments should work to actively develop structures for building the organizational trust necessary to support civil critique.

This paper situates recent changes in educational policymaking, especially the increased use of the ballot initiative, within larger historical trends related to democratic engagement in policy development. I conduct an integrative literature review that combines conceptual analyses with findings from empirical investigations into new policymaking tactics and their influence on policy development. Specifically, I explore (a) the discourses justifying policy priorities over time, and (b) the role of democratic engagement in dominant modes of policymaking. I demonstrate that various sources combine to tell a troubling story about the longstanding exclusion of the public from policymaking regarding its public schools. Further, I argue that, perhaps paradoxically, the increased use of the ballot initiative only exacerbates this trend. Ultimately, I use results from the reviewed research to ask if there is a better way to make policy, one that aspires to higher democratic ideals.

In the United States, there is enormous controversy about how teachers ought to be prepared and licensed. Many of the sharpest controversies stem from acute public skepticism about whether formal teacher preparation is really necessary at all given the lack of conclusive evidence that teacher preparation has a direct impact on students' achievement. With these larger issues in mind, this article presents a review of recent research that empirically examines the connection between teachers' education and either teaching practice or teacher retention (or both). The literature in six distinct genres of research is reviewed with cross-genre conclusions and implications.

To understand how dominant messages about race and effective pedagogy impact teacherbeliefs and practice, this study employs critical race theory (CRT) in a case study analysis ofRebecca Rosenberg, a mid-career entrant into the teaching profession who was terminated fromher first job before the end of her district’s probationary period. Despite believing she wasteaching for social justice, being prepared in a program oriented toward social justice, and beinghired in a school with a comparable mission, Rebecca’s beliefs and practices affirmed uncriticalperspectives of the status quo regarding race, schooling, and social ascendance. This researchunderscores the substantial work to be done in preparing teachers to be reflective of theoverarching cultural myths and majoritarian stories that may guide their practice.