Fractures in the Accountability Paradigm: Policy Actors in Search of New Ideas to Achieve Student Equity

• In Event: 16.060 - Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: 16.060-6 - State Policy Making Around Testing and Accountability

Abstract

This comparative case study focuses on the shifting nature of the New Public Management (NPM) paradigm in education by deconstructing the dimensions that constitute a paradigmatic way of thinking in the minds of opinion leaders and key policy actors in California and Tennessee, two states taking different approaches to designing the next generation of accountability policy. This study sheds light on the underlying values and beliefs that influence policy construction as actors generate new ideas for accountability policy after the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act. The study takes place during a sensitive period when state policy actors have the opportunity to re-think how accountability policies can best achieve student equity before new accountability laws must be enacted.

Author

• Erin Coghlan, University of California - Berkeley