Who matters?

For years, critics of test-based school accountability have pointed out that when schools face pressure to raise students’ scores in math and reading, they tend to respond by doubling down on those two subject areas and cutting back on the teaching of history, art, music, civics, and more. In short, when the spotlight focuses on a small part of the curriculum, other subjects get left in the shadows.

Less often recognized, but equally troublesome, is that recent school reforms haven’t just limited our view of what matters in education (what subject areas, what student outcomes, and what indicators of success) but also our view of who matters.

The major federal policy initiatives of the last decade and a half, No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, were designed mainly to change the attitudes and behaviors of teachers and principals — the members of the school community known to have the greatest and most direct influence on students’ academic achievement. When schools have failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress, it has mostly been teachers and principals who’ve been slapped on the wrist or let go from their jobs. They’re the ones whose performance has been scrutinized in the media and evaluated in the workplace. And they, especially teachers, are the ones whose value-added scores have been calculated, who’ve been hired under alternative certifications, whose seniority rights have come under fire, and who’ve been singled out for merit pay.