Exacerbating Inequality: Public Schooling in the Era of Neoliberal Standardization

City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 5-2018 Exacerbating Inequality: Public Schooling in the Era of Neoliberal Standardization Johanna Panetti Barnhart The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2749 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] EXACERBATING INEQUALITY: PUBLIC SCHOOLING IN THE ERA OF NEOLIBERAL STANDARDIZATION by JOHANNA PANETTI BARNHART A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Urban Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2018 i © 2018 JOHANNA PANETTI BARNHART All Rights Reserved ii Exacerbating Inequality: Public Schooling in the Era of Neoliberal Standardization By Johanna P. Barnhart This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Urban Education in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ______________________ ______________________________ Date Nicholas Michelli, Chair ______________________ ______________________________ Date Wendy Luttrell, Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Dr. Michelle Fine ___________________________ Supervisory Committee: Dr. Terrie Epstein ___________________________ THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Exacerbating Inequality: Public Schooling in the Era of Neoliberal Standardization By Johanna P. Barnhart Advisor: Nicholas Michelli This work is inspired by Jean Anyon’s (1981) landmark ethnographic study, “Social Class and School Knowledge” in which she detailed the differential and class-based constructions of knowledge across five elementary schools. While this research study in no way aims to be a revision of Anyon’s work, it uses her findings to set a foundational premise that curriculum and instruction often work to contribute to the reproduction of social class. Further, this research builds on these findings to examine and analyze social class reproduction in the current neoliberal policy context of standards-based reform. A key policy shift since Anyon’s research is that public school “outsiders”—policymakers, universities, and for-profit companies together are responsible for curricular and assessment design, leaving school “insiders”—the teachers—significantly absent from key decision-making processes. These reforms have re-imagined a corporate vision of public education in the name of civil rights. After spending six months researching across two schools—one high-poverty and steeped in this standardized reform framework, and the other middle-class and staunchly against it—this researcher concluded that students attending high-poverty schools were more likely to face an impoverished, narrow curriculum, in support of Anyon’s findings from over thirty years ago. Social class and educational quality continue to be bound. This illustrates the failure of standardization to meet its central promise of creating a more equitable school system. This work traces iv some of the co-opting of key terms in the movement for standardization—namely accountability, meritocracy, and equity, and the fallacies behind their usage in the current context of high-stakes, top-down policy. Four major findings emerged during this research. First, standardized testing is an inequitable system of assessment, which ignores the role of context—social class, language, and cultural capital in a child’s experience and the impact these have on one’s overall educational success. Second, standardized tests don’t contribute to teacher knowledge about their students. Despite their uselessness for educators, they continue to play a high-stakes role in the lives of children. Third, the imposition of standardization creates an apparatus of assessment and curriculum that is mechanical, skills-based, and often meaningless for students and teachers. This is in contrast with a school freed from standardization, where the curriculum and assessments are authentic, teacher-created, and meaningful. Last, standardization pushes a very narrow set of values in schools and in society, forcing attention away from the humanity of education. There are critical implications for teachers, students, and our democracy as a whole. Teachers are in the process of a complete de-professionalization, while students are labeled and categorized, disciplined or rewarded, based on a dangerously limited set of assumptions. A key underpinning of the standards-based reform movement is that the creation and testing of standards will increase equity, and the intention of this work is to challenge that common-sense notion. Furthermore, the language and actions behind and within this movement threaten the very fabric of our democracy. These two school contexts paint nearly opposite portraits of what we, as a society, value. In conclusion, social class remains an important determiner of the quality of education a child will receive, and therefore of the chances that one’s social class will be reproduced. Rather v than mitigating inequality, standardization exacerbates it. It is dangerous to leave questions of education to policymakers and corporate interests. We must, as a community of educators with boots on the ground, determine what schools will value— and how to best demonstrate those values through our teaching and learning. vi Acknowledgements I am incredibly grateful to the entire Urban Education Department for the guidance and support I have received over these six years. To Christine Saieh, the amazing Program Officer, thank you for the countless times you reminded me to register, helped me out of a bind at the last minute, and generally looked out for my well-being. To my phenomenal Cohort 12–David Rosas, Barbara Hubert, Natalia Ortiz, Carly Huelsenbeck, Kate Seltzer, Brian Jones, Whitney Hollins, Meghan Moore-Wilk (the mama)—thank you for inspiring me, pushing me, making me laugh, and generally making my time at the GC pretty special. I am utterly grateful for you. Dr. Picciano, your early words of enthusiasm in your “Introduction to Research” course were profoundly important to me, and pushed me to believe in myself and in my work. Thank you for your ongoing support and mentorship. To Wendy Luttrell, you challenged me in the greatest ways during my time at the GC. You are a powerful professor and I feel wildly fortunate to have had the opportunity to take two courses with you. To Terrie Epstein and Michelle Fine- two eminent women I can only hope to emulate by 1/4—thank you for agreeing to be on my committee, to read and comment on my work, and to include me in your busy, unbelievably amazing professional lives. It is my honor to work with you. To Nick, my always-supportive advisor- thank you for bringing me into this program, an acceptance that changed my life. It has been a joy to know and to work with you. Your confidence in me has helped countless times, and I am so appreciative. I look forward to working with you for the next one hundred years. To Sam Intrator- I have never forgotten, over 15 years later, seeing you bicycling to class at Smith College, papers in hand, energizing and inspiring us all and opening us to new worlds. You are a phenomenal teacher, and your courses were the reason I fell in love with the idea of teaching and with the work of a future mentor, Jean Anyon. Thank you forever and ever. Finally, to Jean. You were taken from us too early, but your incredible body of work, your indelible commitment to making this world better, your almost unbelievable energy and commitment to your students—lives on. You have been a constant source of inspiration to me for over twenty years now. I first read your work in 1996, and I am still reading it. This study would not exist without your work before it. Thank you for shining such a light for us all to follow. vii A DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Joan Panetti. Mom, you instilled in me a deep appreciation for education, and you showed me by example what it means to be a tremendous teacher. I love and cherish you. Thank you. For my boys, Joaquin & Mateo. You make me want to me the best version of myself everyday. I love you with all my heart. And to my wife, my love, Caridad Caro, a fierce educator of courage and commitment. Your strength lifts me up. Without you, this work would never have been possible. Thank you for your constant support over these years, for being an exceptional parent to our two boys, for taking such good care of them when I needed to work on this thing, and for always believing in me, even when I was filled with self-doubt. I love you, always. viii Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed— Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above. (It never was America to me.) O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe. —Let America Be America Again (1935), Langston Hughes ix Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction I.) Personal Entry Into This Work - p. 1 II.) Overview of Dissertation Research - p. 3 i. Goals and Contributions of This Work – p. 3 ii. Revisiting Jean Anyon’s Social Class & School Knowledge - p. 7 iii. Key terms: p. 11 iv. Research Questions - p. 18 Chapter Two: A Literature Reviews Towards Mapping the “Big Picture” I.) The Current Political Economic Context of Public Schooling - p. 19 i. Economic Inequality- p. 19 ii. On-the-ground-implications: Neighborhood and Housing - p. 21 iii. On-the-ground-Implications: Jobs and Income - p.

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