In the first half of 2021, 26 states introduced--and 12 passed--bills colloquially labeled "critical race theory (CRT) bans." The bills introduced to date can be grouped into three categories: prohibitions against compulsion, against inclusion, and against promotion. The prohibition against promoting CRT, first introduced in the North…

This article reviews Margaret Meek Spencer's body of work in relation to the various policies that she critiqued from the Bullock Report in 1974 to the National Literacy Strategy in 2004. She analysed increasingly conservative moves to promote a dominant, elitist version of school literacy. A Critical Realist perspective aligns with Margaret Meek…

Using a transnational theoretical framework, this study explores U.S. families expatriating to Guanacaste, Costa Rica in search of educational alternatives to U.S. schooling. In order to meet the needs of this influx of U.S. families to the region, schools such as La Paz Community School in Flamingo, Guanacaste have emerged. This qualitative…

A decade ago, states across the nation adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in an effort to raise the academic bar for their students. This has provoked countless political battles since then--including an especially intense one in Florida. That fight culminated in Governor Ron DeSantis vowing to eliminate and replace the Common Core,…

This ethnographic case investigates the relationship between the daily organizing work of one education technology "intermediary organization" (IO) in Silicon Valley, California and federal education technology policies. I argue that the IO constructed policy knowledge that reified discourses of "digital meritocracy": a belief…

There has been a major and growing international focus on improving the quality of teaching for decades. In Australia, there have been numerous key national initiatives introduced since 2007 with the aim of improving school, teacher and student performance. These include national testing and reporting of student achievement, national professional…