From the bottom-up: New York City teacher evaluation and the narration of mediated institutional assault

ABSTRACT

Following the trend of consequential accountability in US public education, New York City introduced a teacher evaluation program during the 2013–2014 school year that linked teachers’ individual performance ratings with their students’ exam scores. As this program systemically alters the nature of teacher–student relationships by transforming students into the means to an end (teachers’ professional viability), this study investigated the implementation of this accountability program from the point of view of the teachers – those who were the subject of this new policy. This study of 15 teachers’ narratives from 3 distinct schools illuminates a social-organizational process that I refer to as mediated institutional assault – a perceived attack on the teachers’ sense of personhood and moral agency perpetrated by mediating figures whose actions were facilitated by bureaucratic policies and institutionally coordinated tools of control. Thus, this study reveals that the consequence of this new mode of accountability is not merely the threat of losing one’s job, but also an insidious form of psychological assault, which in its masked delivery violates teachers’ sense of relational morality and challenges deeply engrained beliefs about their role as educators.

KEYWORDS:

• Consequential accountability
• educational policy
• evaluation
• narrative methods
• qualitative research methods
• teachers’ work and identities

Notes

1. The NYCDOE website now refers to the teacher evaluation system as Advance. I have chosen to retain the original name for this study because ‘TEP’ was used by the teachers in their interviews.

2. I conducted 3 pilot, 14 full-length and 3 follow-up interviews.

3. Names were selected from teachers’ descriptions of their schools. The ‘C’ refers to the grade the school received the previous year.

4. This name refers to the school’s prestigious reputation and selective admittance policy.

5. This name refers to the school’s status as ‘renewal’ school – a school in danger of being taken over by external managers.

6. Three left teaching, four moved within the NYC public school system and two moved to a suburban district north of the city.

7. Additional questions, intended to correspond with a separate analysis, were asked afterward.

8. From (NYCDOE, 2014; NYC Independent Budget Office, 2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James Christopher Head

James Christopher Head is an adjunct professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a PhD student of Psychology at the City University of New York. He was a long-time high school teacher and is committed to researching the psychological dimensions of educational environments.