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Owner: Andrew Skourdoumbis
Owner Email: andrew.skourdoumbis@deakin.edu.au
Paper Title: A Critical Exploration of "Innovation and Reform" in a Race to the Top and the Subjective Policy Positioning of Classroom Teachers
Session Title: Education Policy Making Ranging From Cities, States, and Presidents
Paper Type: Roundtable Presentation
Presentation Date: 4/18/2020
Presentation Location: Online
Descriptors: Educational Reform, Policy, Politics
Methodology: Qualitative
Author(s): Andrew Skourdoumbis, Deakin University
Unit: SIG-Politics of Education
Abstract: This research paper is a critical exploration of the school education policy shift to “innovation and reform” in the Obama administration’s Race To The Top (RTTT) legislative agenda regarding the improvement of student achievement. The paper suggests that the discursive shift to “innovation and reform” in RTTT largely ignores addressing other contributing influences to student achievement linked primarily to social disadvantage. The explicit focus on “innovation and reform” in RTTT prioritizes State based intervention via monetary reward (financial inducement) in creating the conditions for change to enhance student achievement. The study undertaken in this paper aims to understand how the argument for “innovation and reform” in RTTT is prosecuted and what it may mean for classroom teachers.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/1568628