Techies, the Tea Party, and the Race to the Top: The Rise of the New Upper-Middle Class and Tensions in the Rightist Politics of Federal Education Reform

Abstract

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and their associated high-stakes testing are key parts of the federal Race to the Top (RTTT) initiative. There has been considerable resistance to both CCSS and related testing, particularly from conservative actors. This resistance suggests that CCSS has caused substantial tension within the conservative alliance that originally coalesced around No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This article examines the fracturing of the NCLB alliance in response to RTTT and CCSS.