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The Infrastructure of Accountability brings together leading and
emerging scholars who set forth an ambitious conceptual framework
for understanding the full impact of large-scale, performance-based
accountability systems on education. Over the past 20 years,
schools and school systems have been utterly reshaped by the
demands of test-based accountability. Interest in large-scale
performance data has reached an unprecedented high point. Yet most
education researchers focus primarily on questions of data quality
and the effectiveness of data use. In this bold and
thought-provoking volume, the contributors look beneath the surface
of all this activity to uncover the hidden infrastructure that
supports the production, flow, and use of data in education, and
explore the impact of these large-scale information systems on
American schooling. These systems, the editors note, “sit at the
juncture of technical networks, work practices, knowledge
production, and moral order.”
Outside Money in School Board Elections documents and analyzes the
injection of external funding into local elections. Local school
board contests have recently become flashpoints of national donor
interest. Some observers see this engagement as a needed boost for
complacent school districts while others view it as a threat to
local democracy. Drawing on a detailed study of elections in five
districts (Bridgeport, Connecticut, Denver, Indianapolis, Los
Angeles, and New Orleans), the authors explore what happens when
national issues percolate downward into local politics. They
suggest that the involvement of wealthy individuals and national
organizations in local school board elections are signs of the
nationalization of local education politics that potentially have
significant implications for equity and democracy. Outside Money in
School Board Elections brings attention back to local participation
and the diversity of players at that level, and highlights the
national trend of increasing wealth inequality and its impact on
the politics of education. This cross-case investigation
demonstrates that local and national education politics are not
separate fields but closely intertwined areas of political advocacy
with complex interactions.
When federal statistics showed test scores lower in charter than in
regular schools, some charter school supporters insisted this must
result from charter schools enrolling harder-to-teach minority
students. Data show, however, that typical charter school students
are not more disadvantaged, yet their average achievement is not
higher. Even if some charter schools are superior, deregulation
also permits charter schools that are inferior, with average
performance no higher than in regular public schools. Debates
spurred by federal charter school test data show how all debates
about education could be improved: by carefully accounting for the
difficulty of educating particular groups of students before
interpreting test scores, and by focusing on student gains, not
their level of achievement at any particular time.
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