“That School Had Become All About Show”: Image Making and the Ironies of Constructing a Good Urban School

Abstract

The last two decades have seen dramatic change in U.S. schooling as a response to high-stakes accountability and market-based reform movements. Critics cite a number of unfortunate consequences of these movements, especially for students in urban schools. This article explores the troubling ironies related to one strategy for survival in this environment: constructing an image of a “good school.” Drawing from an ethnographic study of an urban middle school, the author argues that the administration developed and promoted an image of a good school in the public sphere but this image did not reflect the experiences of students and teachers. The author develops this argument by drawing out four ironies that resulted from image-building in a climate of high-stakes accountability and market-driven reform.

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