Signaling Reform: School Improvement Plans and Discursive Symbols of Legitimacy

• In Event: How Helpful Is the Help From the Top of the Educational Hierarchy? Contrasting Cases

Abstract

As a result of accountability measures of the last two decades, schools across the country have been labeled “in need of improvement.” We analyzed hundreds of school improvement plans created in response to this designation, and found consistent references to the works of two authors, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and Doug Lemov. Using discourse analysis, we describe how references to these works are framed in the language and practices of modern managerial improvement where a discrete collection of organizational practices can address concrete problems. Often, these strategies are strung together with little consideration for context, history, or school capacity. Instead, they legitimize a narrow model of school improvement applied to schools primarily located in low income neighborhoods of color.

Authors

• Madhu Narayanan, Florida International University

• Matthew S. McCluskey, University of Vermont