Producing transformative change: exploring the relationships between identity, reform, and competency based practices

Accountability-focused reform has dominated the public school landscape over the past several decades. Spurred by federal and state legislation, standardized grading practices, benchmark testing, various choice mechanisms, and revised teacher evaluation models linking student performance to teachers’ evaluations are some of the manifestations of these reforms that have become ubiquitous in public school practice (Apple, 2006; Anderson & Cohen, 2015; Elmore, 2004; Feinberg & Lubienski, 2008; Walberg & Bast, 2003). Not surprisingly, the effects that these calls for reform have had on those within the education profession has garnered considerable attention over the past few decades. While educators across the country found themselves struggling to adapt to the requirements of NCLB, for example, scholars became increasingly focused on examining the effects of school reform initiatives on teachers’ sense of professional agency and their associated professional identities (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004; Day, 2002; Finnigan & Gross, 2007; Flores & Day, 2006; Sloan, 2006). The research suggests that one way teachers are responding to the reality of constant school improvement activities is to retreat to their classrooms, ignoring new initiatives and, exiting the school improvement discourse within their professions (Beijaard et al., 2000; Connelly, Clandinin, & Ha, 1997; Hargreaves, 2005; Hargreaves & Goodson, 2006). The state of Illinois has recently instituted its own version of such reform by way of the Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness Act (PWR-Act). This act encourages schools to take a competency based approach to grading, assessment, and credit accrual in an effort to increase the number of high school students who graduate ready to meaningfully participate in the workforce. How teachers received this reform, particularly how their professional identities affect implementation, was the primary focus of this dissertation. I conducted a qualitative, embedded case study (Yin, 2003) during the school years of 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. The units of analysis for the case study were three teaches at each of two high schools who were part of the state’s initial cohort of implementers under the PWR-Act. This study focused on the primary question of how the professional identity of veteran high school teachers regarded as effective by their school systems was affected by the implementation of competency based reform. Three specific questions were utilized to pursue its purpose. 1. To what extent and in what ways has competency based reform affected teachers’ approach to their classroom practice? 2. How have the teachers’ professional identities influenced the way they have enacted competency based reform and in what ways, in turn, has CBE influenced their identities? 3. To what extent have teachers’ approaches to competency based reform and their professional identities been influenced by racial demographics of their teaching situation? This study offers insight into the state of educational reform under contemporary manifestations of school reform. While the study does find that the current state of school reform can restrict teachers’ sense of self and their professional practice, it is not the norm. Where this phenomenon does exist, there is little, if any evidence here that it continues because of the specific nature of the competency based reform initiatives that constituted the reform contexts of the two high schools.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Ed Organization and Leadership

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Johnson, Gregory

Contributors dc:contributor

• Welton, Anjale
• Hackmann, Donald
• Trent, William
• Roegman, Rachel

• professional identity
• reform
• instruction

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2021 Greg Johnson

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113312

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113312