On the cryptic-note front (move along, move along, there’s nothing to see here), I want to set down briefly what I discovered from trying to explain my sideways looks at ed policy to undergraduates last semester. While this doesn’t quite capture my disciplinary (history) background, I tried to explain a bit about my political legacy of school accountability article and extract a few cynical questions from it:
- Why does this policy exist? Answers could cover different ground:
- the explicit rationale
- the implicit theory of action
- The organizational purpose/role
- The history
- Whose ox is gored
- What are the consequences of this policy?
- It’s a tool for …
- How does this policy change questions raised about ed (and reframe debate in the future)?
- What forms does dissent take, and what are the reactions?
I’m not entirely pleased with this reductionism, but it’s a first stab.