Control as Care: How Teachers in “No Excuses” Charter Schools Position Their Students and Themselves

Abstract

This qualitative study focuses on how early career charter school teachers (n = 20) in schools utilizing a “no excuses” discipline approach describe their interactions with students. Using positioning theory as an analytic tool, we explore how teachers engage the language of no excuses discipline and associated behaviors to position their students as passive beings unaware of “what is best for them” and potential deviants needing oversight. In this way, relationships were largely described as focused on control and compliance. The findings raise questions about how no excuses systems shape teachers’ understandings of care for their students as well as how teacher-student relationships develop.

Note

Notes

1 All names are pseudonyms.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julianna Lopez Kershen

Julianna L. Kershen is a lecturer in the department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum at the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education at the University of Oklahoma. Her scholarship focuses on teacher preparation and development, as well as induction and mentoring. She studies how teachers understand and enact pedagogy and policy, and how those forces shape children’s learning.

Jennie Miles Weiner

Jennie M. Weiner is an assistant professor of Educational Leadership at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. Her scholarship focuses on educational leadership and organizational change, particularly in chronically underperforming schools and districts. She also is interested in gender bias in educational leadership as well as issues of educational infrastructure at the local, district, and state levels.

Chris Torres

Chris Torres is an assistant professor of K-12 Educational Administration at Michigan State University. His research mainly examines charter schools—particularly CMOs and no excuses charter schools—with a focus on disciplinary practices, teacher turnover, teacher selection processes, and leaders’ careers in these contexts.