“This Was NO Place for Me": Teacher Social Media Protest of Charter Management Organizations (Poster 42)

• In Event: Friday Poster Session 9:35 am
  In Poster Session: Division G: Policies Mattering and Praxis Poster Session

Abstract

In the summer of 2020, scores of social media accounts depicted the experiences of BIPOC people at various educational institutions. One subset of accounts emerged on Instagram from teachers at no-excuses Charter Management Organizations (CMOs). Accounts such as @blackatuncommon and @survivors_of_successacademy offered digital protest in which teachers expressed resentment and regret with their CMO experience. Using discourse and content analysis, this paper analyzes the primary themes across teacher posts on CMO-based Instagram accounts. The posts provide rarely heard first-hand accounts of BIPOC teachers in CMOs, experiences filled with racism, trauma, and regret. We argue that teachers offer a visceral counter-narrative to the “woke” narrative championed by CMOs, calling into question the proliferation of CMOs and their practices.

Authors

• Matthew S. McCluskey, University of Vermont

• Madhu Narayanan, Florida International University