Changing Teacher Perceptions of their Roles: Pre and Post NCLB

Abstract

The accountability movement in education charted a more outcomes-driven, standardized approach to education that emphasized labor-market outcomes. No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the cornerstone of this movement, used sanctions to hold schools accountable for federal funding, which in turn pressured teachers to comply with federal expectations. Critics argue that the movement undermined the discretion and improvisation that traditionally characterizes teachers’ work and fostered an overly technical orientation toward teaching. Additionally, scholars have demonstrated that accountability policies reshaped teachers’ classroom behaviors. However, a gap exists in inquiries that empirically examine accountability’s impact on the way teachers cognitively frame their classroom roles. Drawing on interviews from teachers in the pre and post- NCLB eras, this study used a qualitative comparative design to address the questions: “Did the way teachers frame the values, interests, and preferences about their work demonstrate evidence of a change after NCLB was implemented?”and“Did No Child Left Behind (NCLB) shift teachers’ work, in Perrow’s (1967) terms, from craft-like to engineer-like?” The interview data was gathered from twenty secondary English teachers from three different school districts and two distinct historical eras: ten who left the profession in 2002 or before (pre-NCLB), and ten who entered the profession in 2002 or after and who continue to teach (post-NCLB). Teachers were asked to discuss the essential processes that guide their classroom actions. The responses were compared and analyzed for patterns in the ways teachers cognitively frame their classroom worlds. The analysis revealed subtle era-specific shifts in teachers’ perceptions of three essential classroom components: pedagogy, students, and content. First, teachers went from describing themselves as motivators in the pre-era to managers in the post-era. Second, pre teachers indicated they conceived of students like protégés, whereas post teachers conceived of them more like products. Third, pre teachers conceptualized the goals for content as transmitting knowledge, whereas post teachers expressed the goal of transmitting skills. Analyzing the shifts with classifications from Perrow’s (1967) theory of work suggested that there were aspects of teachers’ work that moved from craft-like to engineer-like. These findings indicate that the school organizational structures and programs created in response to NCLB’s mandates may reorient teachers’ professional values, interests, preferences, and goals in ways that mirror those of the policy.