We explore how the opt-out movement has responded to the combination of a stringent federal policy with weak and often variable implementation among the states. Gaps between federal expectations and states' understandings of just how to make NCLB's demands a reality have created policy ambiguity. Parents who oppose standardized testing have…

The state mandated public hearings concerning school closing proposals in New York City provide a window into a diverse set of policy actors and their deliberations. Opposition to school closures is often cast as entrenched interests, emotional attachment, support for the status quo or at worst negligence. However, content analysis reveals that…

Reformers today maintain the use of civil rights rhetoric when advocating for policies that address educational inequity. While continuing the legacy of earlier civil rights activists, the leaders invoking this rhetoric and the educational platforms they promote differ greatly from previous decades. Not only does this new crop of reformers differ…

This paper reports on a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the New Labour (1997-2010) discourse of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in schools, and how it was understood and enacted by policymakers in England and in Wales within the context of devolved government across the UK. By SEL I mean universal school-based programs, located in the…

While charter schools are among the most prevalent public-private partnerships in the education sector, they are frequently only assessed by measuring outputs such as enrollment and test scores. In contrast, this article assesses the logic model behind charter schools, specifically the mechanisms of accountability and competition, through a study…

Policy insiders across party lines increasingly acknowledge educational "gaps," yet they talk about this inequity in very different ways. Though some critique disparities through a structural lens, others use deficit discourse, blaming families of color and working-class families for educational outcomes. This study examines how state…

In this article, we discuss the historical shifts in the purposes of public education and examine how neoliberal education policies, like Chicago's school closings, attempt to limit the purpose of public education to be in service to and at the whim of the market. We juxtapose this dominant neoliberal narrative of public education with the voices…

This article examines the dialectics of Chicago's neoliberal education policies and the grassroots resistance that parents, teachers, and students have mounted against them. Grounding the analysis in racial capitalism and neoliberal urban restructuring, I discuss interconnections between neoliberal urban policy, racism, and education to clarify…

In this article, we advance a conceptual framework for the study of Teach For America (TFA) as a political and social movement with implicit and explicit ideological and political underpinnings. We argue that the second branch of TFA's mission statement, which maintains that TFA's greatest point of influence in public education is not in…

As university supervisors at a large, urban university in the southern US, we examined the ways that the Education Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) shaped the pedagogic relationships and decision-making processes of our students and ourselves during the spring of 2016. We situated this study of edTPA within the framework of critical policy…

This paper examines the relationship between skills prices (wage premiums) and inequality in migrant sending countries (mainly from Latin America) and explores the implications for education policies. Most of the evidence is based on the case of Mexico, a Latin American country that is also an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development…

In Brazil the inclusive education policy and curriculum practices aimed at disabled students have been the subject of research and debate. These students, despite having guaranteed access to regular education, find their schooling processes restricted due to lack of knowledge of their learning characteristics. In both regular classes and…

This article describes public primary English language education in Argentina. I begin with background information about the country and a brief historical overview of education in general, accompanied by a portrait of primary schooling in particular. This overview involves local, political and economic considerations but also international…

The context for education policy making has changed dramatically in recent years. Policymaking at the state-level has become characterized by near-unprecedented enactment of neo-liberal education policies, increased influence of so-called Education Reform Advocacy Organizations (ERAOs) and increased challenges to unions' political influence. In…

The increasing involvement of philanthropists in education policy has contributed to the emergence of a dynamic sector of intermediary organizations (IOs), entities that serve a number of functions in school reform, including advocacy, consultation, policy design, alternative teacher and leadership preparation, and research. In recent years, many…