Educational Policy Goes to School: Case Studies on the Limitations and Possibilities of Educational Innovation

Description

Educational policies explicitly implemented in order to reduce educational gaps and promote access and success for disenfranchised youth can backfire—and often have the unintended result of widening those gaps. In this interdisciplinary collection of case studies, contributors examine cases of policy backfire, when policies don’t work, have unintended consequences, and when policies help. Although policy reform is thought of as an effective way to improve schooling structures and to diminish the achievement gap, many such attempts to reform the system do not adequately address the legacy of unequal policies and the historic and pervasive inequalities that persist in schools. Exploring the roots of school inequality and examining often-ignored negative policy outcomes, contributors illuminate the causes and consequences of poor policymaking decisions and demonstrate how policies can backfire, fail, or have unintended success. Cover Title Copyright Contents 1 Introduction: Conceptualizing the Intricacies that are Concomitant in Educational Policymaking that Determine Success, Backfire, and Everything in Between 2 How Urban Education Choice Campaigns in Detroit Masqueraded as Equity and Social Justice and Worsened the Status Quo 3 When Policies that Impact Students with Significant Disabilities in Michigan Backfire 4 When Zero-Tolerance Discipline Policies in the United States Backfire 5 When Free Schools in England and Charter Schools in the United States Backfire 6 When High-Stakes Accountability Measures Impact Promising Practices in an Indigenous-Serving Charter School 7 How Public-Private Partnerships Contribute to Educational Policy Failure 8 The Failure of Accountability in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program 9 How Centralized Implementation Policies Failed the Austrian New Middle School Process 10 The Unintended Consequences of School Vouchers: Rise, Rout, and Rebirth 11 Challenges and Unintended Consequences of Student-Centered Learning 12 School Discipline Policies That Result in Unintended Consequences for Latino Male Students’ College Aspirations 13 When Special Education Policy in Ontario Creates Unintended Consequences 14 Latina/o Farmworker Parent Leadership Retreats as Sites of Agency, Community Cultural Wealth, and Success 15 Bilingual and Biliterate Skills as Cross-Cultural Competence Success 16 Diversity-Driven Charters and the Construction of Urban School Success 17 Reflecting on the Institutional Processes for College Success Among Chicanos in the Context of Crisis 18 Reframing the Problematic Achievement Gap Narrative to Structure Educational Success Contributor Bios Index