Showing Progress: Adult Literacy Students' Experiences of Accountability-Driven Practice

• In Event: 28.092 - Sheraton Roundtable Two - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 28.092-11 - Adult Literacy and ESL Education

Abstract

As contemporary accountability policies increase federal influence on local adult literacy classrooms, programs who are unable to meet governmentally-defined performance targets are told they could lose their public funding - a potentially devastating blow for programs that rely on this money. In the program described in this ethnographic research paper, the intense pressure practitioners felt for students to “show progress” on state-approved standardized tests often negatively influenced interactions between practitioners and learners and motivated instructional choices that potentially undermined learners’ literacy growth. The research questions guiding the analysis presented in this paper are: What types of instructional practices were instantiated as a response to accountability pressure, and how did learners experience and respond to these practices?

Author

• Amy Pickard, Indiana University - Bloomington