Teaching for Democracy in an Age of Corporatocracy

Purpose: This article explores the extent to which teachers can enact democratic practice in their classrooms in the current accountability context, and limits that context places on them.

Setting and Participants: Participants included two strong classroom teachers in California, both of whom were teaching English language learners from low-income backgrounds, in schools that did not meet Adequate Yearly Progress targets for 2003-2004.

Research Design and Data Collection: A case-study design was used for this study. Data included six hours of observation in each teacher’s classroom, an hour-long interview with each teacher, papers they had completed while they were students in my graduate courses, and their masters theses.

Conclusions: While the teachers were able to use standards strategically to enact a limited form of democratic teaching, both, particularly the teacher who had more experience with democratic teaching, felt thwarted by accountability pressures. I argue that, while democratically minded teachers can navigate accountability pressures up to a point, No Child Left Behind, rooted in corporatocracy, limits teachers’ ability to enact democratic teaching, particularly in schools not meeting test score targets.