This study explores how White principals in the Seattle metropolitan area implemented an active anti-racist stance through school-based racial equity collaborations. Using participatory action research, the study follows three White principals in the Ally Engagement program, a community-based racial affinity leadership intervention, during the…

External and standardized assessments based on student results are a contested education policy among school actors. Movements of opposition have emerged in different countries, especially in those contexts with high-stakes accountability systems. However, this phenomenon has not been analyzed in soft accountability systems. The objective of this…

The American educational policy agenda has been fraught with neoliberal laws that center educational improvement and innovation (Barros, 2012). Neoliberalism operates on the premise that market competition will spur excellence in educational opportunities and decrease the education debt in marginalized communities (Fejes & Salling Olesen,…

The Swiss context presents a specific pattern being a confederal country relying on a subsidiarity principle. Thus, the cantons operate in a framework of a reduced power of central authority (Boulenger et al., 2012; Revaz, 2020) and are autonomous regarding education policies at local level (Akkari, 2019). However, since the adoption of a new law…

While it is nationally recognized that there is a high need for teachers, particularly those of diverse backgrounds and with ESL/bilingual certifications, barriers to certification continue to exist for undocumented individuals. Within the state of New Jersey, these barriers mirror the national limitations. Although New Jersey has made efforts to…

Extant research has emphasized the importance of information to help families of English learner-identified children to navigate school choice structures, and raised critical questions about the information that is made available through school marketing. At a time of increasing tension around school choice and the rapid expansion of certain forms…

This article outlines research directions for global citizenship education, by emphasizing the centrality of democratic goals for schools in the 21st century. Despite a significant shift in educational policies and practices towards addressing education that respond to the conditions of globalization, there is not a clear vision regarding its role…

Opting out of state standardized tests has recently become a movement--a series of grassroots, organized efforts to refuse to take high-stakes state standardized tests. In particular, the opt-out rates in the state of New York reached 20% in 2015 and 21% in 2016. This study aims to illustrate the social networks and examine the paradoxes that have…

Fundraising and collecting fees are ubiquitous in Ontario, Canada's public schools. Critics assert that these practices perpetuate and exacerbate inequities between schools and communities. In this article we present findings from a critical policy analysis of an advocacy group's efforts to change Ontario's fees and fundraising policies over the…

This paper focuses upon the enactment and implementation of a National Educational Reform in Mexico, which introduced competitive examinations for teachers entering the newly established Professional Teaching Service of the National Educational System, and compulsory evaluation of all teachers in active service for promotion and tenure. The…

Market-based reforms of public education do more than shape policy and curriculum; they also influence educators' understanding of themselves as professionals, driving at the very core of what it means to be a teacher or leader. This article explores the effects of neoliberal policies and New Public Management practices on teachers and principals…

Most research on global transformations in education has focused on the actions of political and economic elites. As a result, attempts to contest and subvert globally circulated policies at subnational levels have received less attention. To address this gap, this study focuses on discursive contestations around educational reforms in the United…

Although educators are at the center of contentious high-stakes teacher accountability policies, we know very little about their attitudes toward these policies. This research gap is unfortunate because teachers are considered key actors in successful implementation of educational reforms. To what extent do the politics that accompany the…

This article provides an introductory frame for this special issue dedicated to New Public Management and the New Professional Educator. We will introduce the five articles and how they analyze the characteristics of NPM and this emerging new professional as well as forms of educator resistance and advocacy.

In the fall of 2013, a parents' group formed to protest the new Common Core based mathematics textbook recently adopted by their school district. Quickly allying with teachers, the new coalition began to, "hammer," the district to drop the Common Core and return to more traditional texts and pedagogies. They did so by speaking at…