Chapter 3: Dangerous White Lady

This chapter explores the political, economic, and social factors that have shaped my struggle to control the focus of my research as I pursue a PhD in the educational leadership department of a university college of education (COE). This counterstory may help in the evaluation of current COE practices that develop an academic identity that adheres to the dominant regime of accountability and assessment, quantitative methodology, and a free market framing of education goals.

The pivotal question of any graduate student is: What will I research? I believe that there is too much testing in K–12 public schools and that much of it is not useful to individual students. My goal of conducting research that challenges No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and empowers teachers was diverted as I found that I was being educated to conduct research that developed and tested student assessments. The gold standard of research that qualifies for government funding is a “scientific” experiment that utilizes a control group. This is where the flow of research dollars goes. My department attracts top scholars who teach quantitative qualitative methods such as multi-level modeling.