This article examines the impact of federal, state, and local policies on the roles that elementary school teachers are asked to assume inside and outside the classroom. Through a detailed analysis of changes in teacher tasks over a 4-year period, the authors determined that role expectations increased, intensified, and expanded in four areas: instructional, institutional, collaborative, and learning. These changes had unanticipated, and often negative, consequences for teachers’ relationships with students, pedagogy, and sense of professional well-being. The authors use one policy directive, differentiated instruction, to illustrate the complexity of role demands currently made of teachers, and they draw implications for policy and research.
Using activities as its analytic focus, this article compares the classroom cultures of two reading lessons taught by the same teacher. One was from a regular reading class and the other from a reading intervention class that was designed to help students pass the high-stakes state assessment. By developing fine-grained descriptions of classroom activities and participant roles, the article offers educators and policymakers a close look at the ways in which childcentered and test-centered classroom cultures are constructed and the different types of learning opportunities and relationships each provides. [literacy instruction, classroom culture, high-stakes tests]He sat down to take the test and tears were coming down his face and he looked up at me and he said-I was teaching third grade-and he said, "I thought I could read." And I thought, from that minute on, that's never going to happen to me again. My kids are all going to feel comfortable. No one is going to look at this test and start crying.
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