Countering the Effects of Neoliberal Reforms on an Urban Turnaround High School

• In Event: 18.052 - School Turnaround and Reform Efforts: Leadership to Augment Professional Capital and Student Learning

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to document the ways in which students and adult supporters of an urban turnaround high school mobilized to defy the rhetoric of federal education reforms and deficit narrative imposed on them and their school by advancing counternarratives to refute the master narratives advanced by NCLB (2002). The current rationale of neoliberal federal education reform policies and disabling terminology used to construct the identity of a turnaround school and the individuals associated with the school is interrogated. An alternative approach and philosophy of thought regarding school turnaround and the ways in which we define the worth and value of a school, its students, parents, teachers, staff, and the larger community it serves is offered.

Author

• Barbara L Pazey, University of North Texas