Over several decades, local, state, and federal policy makers in the USA have directed
their attention and policy initiatives on classroom teaching, specifying what teachers
should teach, in some cases how they should teach, and acceptable levels of student
achievement. They have done so by mobilizing policy instruments – rewards and
sanctions – for compliance with externally imposed performance standards. As a
result of the dramatic change in the institutional environment of US schools over the
last 25 years, curriculum standards and test-based accountability have become staples,
perhaps even taken for granted, in the educational sector. Policy makers are not the
only ones implicated in this transformation. Extra-system agents and agencies
(e.g. comprehensive school reform designs, charter school networks, philanthropic
institutions) have also played a prominent role, albeit with government support and
incentives, in transforming the American education sector. These shifts in the
institutional environment of America’s schools represent a considerable departure for
business as usual inside schools.
Though commentators often associated the transformation with the federal
“No Child Left Behind” (No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), 2001) legislation,
these institutional shifts pre-date NCLB, as several state and local governments