California Teachers' Experiences With the No Child Left Behind Act and Its Detrimental Effects

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Abstract

This paper discusses primary and middle school teachers’ experiences with the NCLB Act and its detrimental affect colonializing all areas of knowledge in school depriving students of equal educational possibilities. This is a longitudinal study showing how California teachers move from an autonomous professional, towards an instrumental professional where knowledge in the curriculum, areas of knowledge by teachers and student learning become marginalized with the Act. The education policy discourse of external accountability operated in California prior to the Act. However, combined with different policy mechanisms and strategies the Act leaves no space for teachers to act (Bernstein, 200) where the teacher as moral and ethical professional is denied internal accountability (Darling-Hammond, 2006).

Author

• Lene Kristine Marsby Ramberg, Oslo Metropolitan University