Concerted Compliance With No Child Left Behind: The Case of Cypress Middle School

• In Event: Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: Mathematics Curriculum Enactment and Policy

Abstract

NCLB requires that students take annual, standardized assessments as a measure of learning; the results of these tests are taken as an indicator of school performance. The ever-increasing nature of the goals laid out by NCLB have made it increasingly difficult for schools to make adequate year progress (AYP). This case study documents the efforts of Cypress Middle School, which made AYP after a long history of failure, to understand how accountability pressures are shaping the work of math teaching. Findings indicate that accountability pressures minimized teachers’ opportunities to improve instruction and led to distortive uses of data.

Authors

• Jason Brasel, Vanderbilt Peabody College

• Ilana S. Horn, Vanderbilt University