Date of Award
5-31-2017
Document Type
Campus Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education (EdD)
Department
Education/Leadership in Urban Schools
First Advisor
Patricia Krueger-Henney
Second Advisor
Tricia Kress
Third Advisor
Patricia Paugh
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to give describe how the daily professional experiences of seven high school math teachers’, from Cumberland County, North Carolina, inform their teacher identities and respective commitments to stay or leave the classroom. I used a blended methodology of phenomenological interviewing and portraiture to capture the teachers daily professional interactions and the meanings they associated with those critical incidents. The method of analysis, tanzziegen, employed the use of metaphor in conjunction with the portraitures was used to explain the dynamic relationship between federal and state policies, associated with the Race to the Top program.
Race to the Top policies required the adoption of the Common Core Curriculum, student testing in teacher evaluation, and teacher accountability through compensation. These policies informed the daily professional interactions between the math teachers and their administrations, math teachers and other teachers, and math teacher and their students.
Analysis showed that state and federal policies have a detrimental influence on teacher retention, math teacher relationships with school administration were severely undermined resulting in micromanagement of teacher practice and an increasingly divisive work relationship. Math teachers’ relationships with other teachers provided a source of sustainment for their teacher identities. The strains on the math teacher-student relationship was also exposed.
Recommended Citation
Taylor, Cindy Smith, "Walking the Tightrope: The Tension in Math Teachers' Walk through Identity and Agency amidst Race to the Top in Cumberland County Schools" (2017). Graduate Doctoral Dissertations. 347.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/doctoral_dissertations/347
Comments
Free and open access to this Campus Access Dissertation is made available to the UMass Boston community by ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. Those not on campus and those without a UMass Boston campus username and password may gain access to this dissertation through resources like Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global or through Interlibrary Loan. If you have a UMass Boston campus username and password and would like to download this work from off-campus, click on the "Off-Campus UMass Boston Users" link above.