In this paper we illustrate the relationships between Teach For America (TFA) and federal charter school reform to interrogate how policy decisions are shaped by networks of individuals, organizations, and private corporations. We use policy network analysis to create a visual representation of TFA’s key role in developing and connecting personnel, political support, and financial backing for charter reform. Next we examine how the networks unfold at a local level by zooming in on a case study of New Orleans. By mapping out these connections, we hope to provide a foundation for further investigation of how this network affects policies.

Mapping the terrain: Teach For America, charter school reform, and corporate sponsorship

What is the landscape of the racial politics of public education in the age of Obama? To what factors can we attribute the seeming educational policy consensus from Washington, DC, to the states and from philanthropies and policy entrepreneurs in urban school districts? How should we understand opposition to the policy menu? This article examines commonsense understandings in education reform, which are supported by assertions that market-based schooling options are superior for children of color, and argues that a primary reason for the popularity of such reforms is an underexamined advocacy coalition, formed nominally around school choice, while also encompassing several other entrepreneurial educational reforms. The article describes the structure of this network, arguing that its dominance has precluded an understanding of counter advocacy against school choice and related reforms. It then describes several past and current movements that challenge commonsense understandings of the reforms’ currency, ...

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Market-Driven Education Reform and the Racial Politics of Advocacy

The authors situate the emergence and effects of contemporary market-based reforms within a framework of urban political economy that centers on racial inequality. They discuss how and why market-b...

The Political Economy of Market-Based Educational Policies: Race and Reform in Urban School Districts, 1915 to 2016

Empirical studies of cognitive ability and personality have tended to operate in isolation of one another. We suggest that returning to a unified approach to considering the development of individual differences in both cognition and personality can enrich our understanding of human development. We draw on previous meta-analyses of longitudinal, behavior genetic studies of cognition and personality across the life span, focusing particular attention on age trends in heritability and differential stability. Both cognition and personality are moderately heritable and exhibit large increases in stability with age; however, marked differences are evident. First, the heritability of cognition increases substantially with child age, while the heritability of personality decreases modestly with age. Second, increasing stability of cognition with age is overwhelmingly mediated by genetic factors, whereas increasing stability of personality with age is entirely mediated by environmental factors. Third, the maturational time-course of stability differs: Stability of cognition nears its asymptote by the end of the first decade of life, whereas stability of personality takes three decades to near its asymptote. We discuss how proximal gene-environment dynamics, developmental processes, broad social contexts, and evolutionary pressures may intersect to give rise to these divergent patterns.

Comparing the Developmental Genetics of Cognition and Personality over the Life Span

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were designed to address poor science and math performance in United States schools by inculcating globally competitive science, technology, engineering, and mathematics literacies relevant to participation in future society. Considering the complex network of influences involved in the development of the NGSS, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate how educational values are embedded in the discourse of the standards. Using critical discourse analysis and content analysis, we evaluated how themes related to (i) performance, (ii) accessibility, and (iii) innovation and creativity are discursively constituted in the NGSS. Our analysis indicates the NGSS prioritizes: measurable and reproducible performances; the standards appear to be based on a conception of accessibility closely aligned with equality, and self-investment, and; innovation and creativity are discursively constituted as attributes that can be developed through specific, prescribed practices. We discuss these findings in relation to the goals of the NGSS and potential teaching and learning outcomes resulting from education based on the standards.

Values Underpinning STEM Education in the USA: An Analysis of the Next Generation Science Standards

In this essay, Charles Payne and Tim Knowles argue that given President Obama's support of charter schools, it is time for educators and policymakers to closely consider both the possibilities and the limitations of these schools in the context of urban school reform. The authors discuss the unique flexibility of charter schools—namely in staffing, time, budgetary autonomy, governance, and protection from district policies—as a significant source of their potential effectiveness. However, they also note the major challenges these schools face, as evidenced by variability in achievement results, sustainability, and quality of instruction. The authors suggest that these strengths and challenges must be considered together, and that the administration must focus on the elements of effective schooling for all children. Drawing upon this kind of evidence, the authors conclude, will lead to a more grounded and less partisan debate about urban education.

Tim Knowles

Papers

Promise And Peril: Charter Schools, Urban School Reform, and the Obama Administration