Senior Quantitative UX Researcher @ Google

Dissertation Research

Test Questions: The mobilization of the anti-standardized testing movement

My dissertation consists of three studies of the “opt-out” movement–a coalition of parents and educators who oppose the use of standardized tests for “high-stakes” accountability purposes.

Study 1: How have activists used social media platforms to develop a movement infrastructure supporting collective action?

[In progress!]

Study 2: Strange frame fellows: The evoluation of discursive framing in the opt-out movement

Standardized tests are a cornerstone of accountability policies, yet they face increasing opposition from a coalition of parents and educators, who encourage boycotts of annual tests. Activists use a variety of discursive tactics to attract people to their cause, typically relying on an underlying ideological compatibility between activists and their target audience. How do activists use discursive tactics when they seek to mobilize an ideologically diverse base? Taking the case of the opt-out movement in New York State, I analyze how activists frame issues around testing to appeal to a broad audience. Using a longitudinal text corpus consisting of posts to movement-aligned Facebook group pages, I find that activists used four prominent framing strategies: (1) using locally-oriented frames that viewed testing as harmful to children and local schools; (2) using technically-oriented frames that attacked the legitimacy of the tests; (3) using socially-oriented frames that cast the tests as a tool for undermine the public school system; and (4) particularizing and personalizing frames, making the need to act urgent. I then use hierarchical cluster analysis to document how activists emphasized the first two types frames and downplayed the more ideologically-tinged social frames. The case provides insights into how activists use framing to appeal to a potentially diverse audience and has implications for the design and implementation of accountability policies.

Study 3: Racialized Accountability Threat: Racial Diversification and Participation in Accountability Test Boycotts in New York

Standards-based accountability policies have become a fundamental part of public schooling over the past twenty years. While always subject to controversy and debate, they face renewed opposition in the form of mobilized boycotts of the annual administration of accountability tests. Why, over a decade after the national codification of accountability through No Child Left Behind, have widespread boycotts emerged? Drawing on a framework synthesizing literature of the role of threat in social movements, the racialization of school quality, and the effects of accountability, I propose that increasing racial diversification promoted participation in boycotts, particularly among white families in non-urban schools. I argue that the implementation of more challenging Common Core-aligned assessments and growing racial diversification increased the salience of accountability pressure in these school, promoting oppositional collective action. Using data from New York State from 2009-2016 and a difference-in-differences analytic framework, I show that schools experiencing increases in their share of Black and Latinx students after the initial administration of Common Core-aligned tests had a seven-percentage-point greater boycott rate among white students compared to schools without such an increase. These findings have implications for policies that challenge the administrative tradition of local control over public schools and for the role of collective action in maintaining that control.