Jumping through Hoops: Troubling Music Teacher Dilemmas in the New Era of Accountability

Abstract

Conversations around changes to music teacher evaluation have publicly played out for the last decade. These discussions largely have focused on discrete aspects of the new accountability systems, including the particulars of observations, measuring student growth in non-tested grades and subjects, the motivation for changes to teacher evaluation, and myriad potential problems and unintended consequences involved. However, the underlying logic that drives these changes has been relatively ignored. I suggest that lurking beneath the surface of recent accountability systems is performativity, an approach to education that reorients schooling toward the competitive needs of the economy. In this “production” model, teachers are narrowly defined as effective if they produce specified results in the form of standardized test scores or successful completion of student learning objectives. This article offers vignettes of music teachers’ struggles under performativity to illustrate the dilemmas faced by conscientious educators, and it addresses some of their concerns.

High Stakes without the Stakes: Positioning Music Educators amid Teacher Evaluation Reforms

“…Music educators still suggest that administrators lack the content knowledge to understand music pedagogy, making more frequent and structured observations less than helpful. 37 When paperwork related to HSTE adds work to an already full day and music teachers feel they must put on airs for an observation ritual, music educators are likely to feel frustrated.…”