How Schools Meet Students' Needs: Inequality, School Reform, and Caring Labor

Katie Kerstetter

Published by Rutgers University Press 2023

How Schools Meet Students' Needs

Inequality, School Reform, and Caring Labor

Katie Kerstetter

In the series Critical Issues in American Education

https://doi.org/10.36019/9781978823624

Overview
Contents

About this book

Meeting students’ basic needs – including ensuring they have access to nutritious meals and a sense of belonging and connection to school – can positively influence students’ academic performance. Recognizing this connection, schools provide resources in the form of school meals programs, school nurses, and school guidance counselors. However, these resources are not always available to students and are not always prioritized in school reform policies, which tend to focus more narrowly on academic learning. This book is about the balancing act that schools and their teachers undertake to respond to the social, emotional, and material needs of their students in the context of standardized testing and accountability policies. Drawing on conversations with teachers and classroom observations in two elementary schools, How Schools Meet Students’ Needs explores the factors that both enable and constrain teachers in their efforts to meet students’ needs and the consequences of how schools organize this work on teachers’ labor and students’ learning.

Author / Editor information

Katie Kerstetter, Ph.D., is a Research Affiliate with the Center for Social Science Research and an Affiliate of the Center for Population Studies at the University of Mississippi. Her research focuses on the study of education, health, and social inequality, with a particular interest in how social policies influence the daily lived experiences of teachers, other frontline workers, and the individuals they serve.

Reviews

"The data is interesting and the stories are compelling. How Schools Meet Students’ Needs is a significant contribution to a field without adequate attention."

— Jennifer A. Reich, Author of Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines

"Kerstetter provides a vivid ethnographic account of how policies such as No Child Left Behind actually produce the opposite outcomes from what they supposedly aim to accomplish, constraining public schools from being able to effectively educate low-income children. How Schools Meet Students’ Needs is well-written and easy to read."

— Julia Sass Rubin, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy

"The data is interesting and the stories are compelling. How Schools Meet Students’ Needs is a significant contribution to a field without adequate attention."

— Jennifer A. Reich, Author of Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines

"Kerstetter provides a vivid ethnographic account of how policies such as No Child Left Behind actually produce the opposite outcomes from what they supposedly aim to accomplish, constraining public schools from being able to effectively educate low-income children. How Schools Meet Students’ Needs is well-written and easy to read."

— Julia Sass Rubin, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part 1 The Work of Teaching
1 Beyond Standardized Testing: Meeting Students’ Social, Emotional, and Material Needs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
Part 2 Oak Grove Elementary
2 Working in an Audit Culture: Surveillance and Teaching at Oak Grove Elementary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	39
3 “This is the Most Dreadful Test” The Hidden Curriculum of Standardized Testing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
Part 3 City Charter School
4 Working as Part of a School Reform Movement: Urgency, Achievement Gaps, and Individual Responsibility Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
5 “I Would Love to Hear What You Have to Say” Cultural Reproduction in Social and Emotional Learning Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	98
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
Appendix Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149