Accountable to Whom?: The Use of Media to Communicate Educational Accountability to Latino Families in a California Middle School

Abstract

This paper explores how one Title I middle school in California responds to high-stakes accountability during an era of educational reform, and how one first-generation Latino immigrant family comes to understand the school’s focus on test scores, high expectations, and academic achievement. Drawing from a larger Language Socialization study that utilizes participation observation and interview data, the paper provides ethnographic snapshots to demonstrate the ways in which one school communicated under, with, and through high stakes educational reform policies via a variety of media while functioning under Program Improvement status, and how the focal family participated in and negotiated these draconian educational policies that became part of their everyday experience with schooling in the U.S.