THE CHANGING ROLES OF TEACHERS: SERVING THE PUBLIC INTEREST? by

Teacher roles in a high-stakes accountability climate are examined in this paper. Through interviews with teachers and principals between 2002 and 2005, and case studies of three schools in 2004-2005, we established that teachers ’ roles changed in response to policies aimed at improving student achievement. Teachers ’ roles increased in number as they were asked to do more things, intensified as policy-driven directives increased responsibility for work done in the classroom, and expanded in scope as teachers were held responsible for more collaboration outside of the classroom. Through examining how teachers responded to one pervasive instructional directive, “differentiated instruction, ” we illustrated the complexity of interactions between different roles and indicated areas in which the teachers experienced the most pressure to change. Our findings suggest that numerous, rapid-fire, and simultaneous policy directives promote an environment in which teachers are asked to relate to their students differently than they were traditionally accustomed to and enact pedagogies that are often at odds with their vision of best practices